FALL BREAK 2008

Today is the start of something wonderful.

Fall Break 2008.

Thats right. Today starts a chain reaction of fun events that come in many different forms for many different people. Some people left earlier this week, choosing to skip classes to fully enjoy the long weekend. Others have decided that a long weekend at school doesn't constitute skipping classes and have chosen to stay here at school. I am more in the camp of the latter, but just because we've decided to be more responsible doesn't mean that we still can't have fun! My roommate headed back to Bolivia for a week, so from my room alone i feel like we have the entire spectrum of Fall Break activities covered. 

So let me do a little bit of explaining of this coming weekend. 

Thursday- Today is the beginning of all of this insanity. Starting later this afternoon, we most likely will be playing a board or two of Lord of The Rings Risk, which by the way is awesome. After that, Julie Coddington, a fellow PA from English hall, will be possibly making some of us privileged individuals pies and cakes and the sort. We get to be the official taste testers! (SO TIGHT) After these things take place, other mayhem will ensue, but it won't be planned, which is probably the best kind of mayhem. :-)

Friday- Friday we will wake up and begin the day in a lazy manner. Friday is our official Board game day. Risk, LOTR Risk, Settlers of Cattaan, Heroquest, and many others will all be played tomorrow. This is the true root of our geekiness and we are going to relish in it, so be jealous. After all of the gaming has gone on, we are planning on heading over to a neighboring dorm and making root beer! I ordered Root Beet Extract (from zatarain's, the people who also make rice) and Brewer's Yeast (from swanson's, the chicken broth company). I was very confused as to the sellers, but its no use to fret over it. :-) This is set up to be a major event, so a lot of us who are sticking around are planning on heading over and learning this obscure art! Who knows, maybe one of us will find our true calling.

Saturday- Saturday is set up to be another slow start to the day, but then we have a lot of plans. The plans of our overall group deviate a little bit more on this day because of other responsibilities that we have. One guy, Ben Aalderink, will be headed up to Fort Wayne to see some friends from home. Ryan Gates and Dustin Friesen are going to Indianapolis to shop at the Apple store, considering Dustin's computer is on the fritz. *moment of silence for dustin's mac...* I personally will probably be trying to watch seasons 1 & 2 of heroes. I will blog about my reasonings for watching Heroes some other time because this is already a long enough blogpost and you probably wouldn't be interested anyway. :-)

Sunday- Finally, the final day of fall break. On sunday, many people will be coming back with crazy stories of what happened over fall break, all of whom thought they had the best break. Unbeknownst to them, I know that everyone who stayed would have had the most fun. This day we will be doing homework and hanging out with other friends, all of whom realize now that fall break is over that responsibilities have come back to bite them in the butt. 

Its okay though, its college. This is where we are weaned away from childhood and thrown into the cold world, holding onto only our weak presuppositions of the way things are and what we are told we have to do to be good people. Its a bleak and dismal outlook on everything, but that really is all you have in the world.

at least, thats what you think if you didn't spend fall break at Taylor University. :-)

Chorizo Attack

Hello again my loving blog! 

Well today is a good day. the sun is shining, the sky is blue, and its the start of another really good week. I cannot complain! 

Last night at catalyst i preached for the first time ever, as was apparent by the way i did it. :-) I was super nervous about speaking, but while i was up there, i realized a little bit that God is going to work in these people's lives whether i'm going to help Him or not. The words that i would say, even if i thought they were bad, would be used to help His kingdom cause. That gave me a little bit more peace about talking, but it didn't help the dry mouth! I spoke on christian community and the wisdom that James has to say about it in the Bible. Overall, i think that the sermon went well, though i wish now that i hadn't repeated what i said so much. Redundancy is not a good trait to display as a speaker. After i was finished, kids came up to me and told me that it was a good sermon, but one student in particular sat me down and talked to me about what i said. She was frustrated with the church and how we are only in our own little bubble, not really all out caring for the world at large. She said that the church was just a big "machine" that was more concerned about converts than believers. 

It was really ironic because that is the exact place that i was in when i was her age. I mean, to a T. I think we even used the same words to describe how we were feeling. After talking with her for a little bit, i was able to encourage her in some of the things that she is learning or dealing with. Its inevitable that every believer comes to a point in their faith that is a little bit of a crisis moment, so she is just having her moment a little bit earlier than most. It was really good to see that people in our youth group are challenging themselves and wanting to grow in Christ. 

Have you ever had Mexican sausage? I was introduced to it yesterday... After church yesterday morning, i met up with my friend Ben Aalderink and family for lunch. They were passing through Indianapolis on there way to Tennessee for a houseboating trip, so they decided to let me grace their presence. We went to the mexican restaurant El Rodeo, which overall is really quite tasty. Good chips, spicy salsa, hot food. You name it, they got it. (no Arroz con Pollo though) As we sat down to eat, i could tell that everyone was in a little bit of a hurry to get back on the road, so we all ordered relatively small meals. I got 2 Chorizo quesadillas. 

Now Chorizo is a kind of sausage that is made from a bunch of different animals (traditionally) but i'm thinking mine was just pork. Whatever it was, it was really spicy! As we finished our meals and i went back to the house, i knew that the chorizo was a bad idea. Throughout the entire rest of the day, i felt just a little bit queasy. Not enough to knock me down, but just enough to make the day uncomfortable. Even as i was talking to my girlfriend at 12:30 at night, i still had an upset stomach. Apparently, this gringo cannot handle his Chorizo...

I think that is it for now! I hope all the fathers had an absolutely fabulous father's day and they got all their heart's desires. Until next time!