Bonus Features

We thought we were signing up for a conveniently located 2-bedroom, 1 1/2 bath townhouse.  Oh, but we got so much more.  Much, much more.  Like a squirrel carcass next to the back patio, a lettuce patch where the flowers should go in the front, and carpenter ants all over upstairs.  How organic.

Please note that I refrained from posting pictures.

Moving Out, Moving On, Moving Up

I’m finally finished with my big move. (oh yeah, I moved over the weekend)  I didn’t go too far…just across the playground into a different campus townhouse.  I pretty much wore a path in the grass between the old and new place.  I’m enthusiastic about the prospects for life with a new roommate.  As I told another friend, if our roommate karma is as good as our decorating karma, we’ll be set.  She’s a tad older than me and used to be a lawyer; needless to say, we run at more the same speed than I did with my previous roommate who was much more than a tad younger than me.  Blah…blah…that’s not all that important.  What is important is that the new roommate is cool, our place is cool and it feels like home.  The doors are open to anyone in need of a welcoming space while they’re in West Michigan.

The downside of the new pad is that I am leaving on Saturday for my summer internship in Seattle, so I won’t be able to enjoy the digs for long.  I’ll be working with World Relief in Seattle, learning lots and lots about the refugee resettlement process.  I have to drive all the way there…haven’t fully decided what I think of that yet.  I love to drive by myself, but I’m not sure how fun it can be to drive through the entire state of North Dakota.  Buffalo.  Oh boy.  At any rate, I signed up for AAA today.  Back to the point…I know the internship will be a good experience for me.  I’ll be in a new environment and will be doing most of life in a much more professional (i.e. mature) setting than I usually get at school.  That alone will be glorious.  But I’ll also be getting my hands into something I’ve had an interest in but have never had the chance to really try.  It’s humbling, honoring and exciting to know that I’ll get to spend a few months working with both the office staff and refugees.  It maybe wishful thinking, but I am really hoping the summer will give me some additional vocational direction.  The other thing I am hoping is that the summer will give me that last little boost to get over the hump otherwise known as 2005-2006.  I don’t know if I’m banking on the reallocation of passion and a new understanding of gifts and identity…or it could be that I’ll get to spend some quality times with the fabulous Ms. Gruber.  Who knows.  I just have a feeling that this will be me moving on.

I’ve moved out; I’m looking forward to moving on.  I’m not really moving up.  I just like the Jeffersons. 

Exegetical Extravaganza

I just turned in my final Greek exegetical project - 9 minutes before the deadline.  It was 18 pages long.  How could there be so much to say about 10 verses?  Writing this thing has left me feeling like I’ve been driving for hours on end.  My butt hurts.  I have calluses on my wrists.  It’s Tulip Festival so there were marching bands going buy for an hour or two earlier.  Then the girls across the street set up their lemonade stand for the 5th straight day and have been shouting “LEMON-AY- ADE, TWINNY FI SINS!!”  I want to shake them.  Did I mention it’s been going on for 5 days?  They haven’t sold any lemonade yet.  You’d think they’d give up and go back in the house.

The last several hours have really added to the car-like analogy b/c I tried to shut the windows to drown out the band and the kids, but I got so blasted hot with the sun shining directly at me that I feel car sick.  I didn’t have enough time to spare to get up and open the window again.

I didn’t even really do any citations.  The new Microsoft Word does them for you…kind of.  It’ll take care of in-text stuff but you have to do your own footnotes.  I was getting so close to the buzzer that I just skipped out on the footnotes, put in Word’s automatic in-text citations, generated the automatic bibliography and moved on. 

I seriously feel like I’m coming off of something.  Can you get a hangover from First Peter?  This is out of control.  Well, I’m going to go drink a lot of water and go walk around the block a few times.  Thanks for celebrating/being slightly concerned/commiserating with me.

Computer Update

Best Buy allowed me to purchase a “loaner” computer so that I could carry on with my school work.  I had to pay for it, but will get all my money back when mine is fixed.  The loaner cost $478 dollars, so I am slightly limited on the technology end.  The hard drive is gone.  The Geek Squad looked at it and the tech guy at school did too.  I could probably send it in to a speciality company, but quotes I’ve received so far are upwards of $300, and that’s if they get it back to me in 2 weeks.  However, I needed the stuff urgently which would have meant $1000 or more.  I really doubt that my papers were good enough to be worth $1000, so I have been working non-stop to rewrite everything.  Unbelievably, I am caught up and just need to begin redoing my Greek exegetical paper. 

The Greek extravaganze begins this afternoon and will carry on all weekend.  I present on Monday and the paper is officially due Wednesday at 5:00.  If any of you have ever exegeted 1 Peter 2:1-10, let me know.  Email me your notes.  Better yet, email me your work. 

Oh wait, seminarians arent’ supposed to cheat.