Campus Day!

So, I planned to be on campus all day to finish my environmental assignment, but I didn't need nearly that much time. I've spent the last hour or so sitting in the lawn outside of old main with SJ and a friend from my auditing class. Various people have come by and said Hi, and I can't help but get excited about this being a part of my job next year. I'm relaxed, gotten a little work done, enjoyed conversation with passing friends, and its fantastic!

The weather is nice, which makes this absolutely perfect. Sarah just related reading A.W. Tozer to trying to read hot chocolate because every word is so thick. How fantastic! What a day.

With such a great day at hand, I can't help but reflect on the BibleGateway Verse of the day:
“Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.”- Romans 12:15

It seems that all things have their time. The tricky part is figuring out which time is for what. How often have I made a joke with someone who was mourning when I thought they were rejoicing? How often have I been "debbie downer" when friends are trying to celebrate around me? In some ways, this verse is almost a "go with the flow" sort of feeling.

Of course, we can't take that too far and think that we need to go with the flow all the time. There are definitely times we are called to be counter-cultural, and sometimes be sad when we're supposed to be sad. I still think this verse is a good reminder that sometimes our attitudes need adjusting.

Woo hoo! Good day!

Sweet afternoon in the library. A sabbath of sorts. I started an intern book and relaxed. Good times!

Sweet afternoon in the library. A sabbath of sorts. I started an intern book and relaxed. Good times!

Memphis Recap: Complete!

My memphis recap video is finally complete. Woo hoo!

Slow to post...

I've been slow to post recently, partially because of the excitement of the ski to sea. Its a great long weekend up in Bellingham, where most students go home. What those who go home miss out on is a great weekend of the outdoors, walking, friends, and community. On Saturday, a few friends came over for pancakes and then we all walked down to the parade together. Swinging by the farmers market, we grabbed some kettle corn. I think it might be my favorite food. Saturday concluded with three barbecues. One with some parade friends, the next with some ski to sea teams (I did a bunch of interviews for the ski to sea video contest). Later that day, some high school friends came up to have a final bbq. What a great Saturday!

On Sunday, I spent the day driving teams around and visiting more friends. My video camera followed me most of the day. We'll see how the ski to sea video comes along. I'm skeptical because I have no footage from the top of the mountain. We'll see though.

Woo hoo! Three more weeks left. Youth Retreat this next weekend. Awesome. I had 5 books show up this last week too, so I'm pretty excited to get into those as well. Sweet.

New Things!

Well, we've got someone new living in our house. He's a pretty cool guy that Jordan knows from Canada, but he's really from Atlanta. He'll be living here for a bit, and we're cool with that.

To make room for him, Pat moved to Jordan's old room, Jordan moved back to pat's old room, and Zach moved is bunkbed into Jordan's new room so that Jordan and Jesse could share a room. I hope that doesn't sound simple. It was quite a night of moving.

This weekend is the INN spring retreat. I'm really excited. It's always a great retreat full of some good adventures, and some new people who met the INN during the last few quarters. There will also be new friends from mission trips. All around - a fantastic time.

I got photoshop and some other adobe stuff this week. I've enjoyed it so far, but only really put it to work last night when I was messing around with one of the Memphis pictures of myself. Here's the art:

"What a waste of time!"

So, I was walking home from class the other day, and I noticed another girl from my class walking ahead of me, so I caught up and started a little conversation with her. As all accounting majors do, we eventually got to the point of talking about what we're going to do next year. I'm learning to love the conversation. It went something like this:
Stead: So, what are you doing after all this accounting stuff?
Girl: Oh, I think I'll go audit for one of the big four. You're graduating this quarter, aren't you?
Stead: yep, I'm almost done!
Girl: So, which firm are you going to go work for? Do you have any advice for my recruiting?
Stead: Well, I'm not going to go work for any of them.
Girl: Huh? So you must be recruiting then right now. A little late, but you gotta start somewhere!
Stead: Actually, I'm not recruiting now either, or ever.
Girl: So... what are you doing?( everyone who asks this asks with a pause... like they're treading on some strang unfamiliar ground)
Stead: Well, I'm going to go to Alaska for the summer and drive a tour bus.
Girl: Oh... what about after that? What about the rest of your life?
Stead: Well, next year I'm going to do an internship with a college ministry that meets at First Pres Church down on Garden Street. Have you heard of the INN?
Girl: Oh.. yeah... I think I've heard of it. So... What about your accounting degree, did you just get a degree just to get a degree?
Stead: Well... no. I trust some sort of accounting knowledge will come into play in my future, but even if not, having a four year degree still opens a lot of doors.
Girl: So... studying accounting was a total waste of time?
Stead: ...?

It was a good reminder that outside of INN and church circles, there are a lot of people who aren't going to understand what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, or why it was worth it to go to school. There are actually a lot of people within those circles that wonder too. I'm excited for the opportunity to tell them about it though. It'll be a good year!

Bless Bellingham Day!

Today is officially Bless Bellingham Day! The congregation of First Pres-Bham is heading out everywhere on organized and non-organized trips all over the city to be a blessing. It's an awesome opportunity for us to give back to the community that has given us so much. I'm excited to see what Bellingham looks like after a congregation gathers together to go out and make a difference in the community. While I think we should always be living to make a difference in our community, I think seeing what we can all do together will be awesome.

My part this morning is picking up some High School kids for our community pancake breakfast this morning. Starting at 10am, there will be free pancakes in the basement of FPC for anyone in the community who would care to come. There is no catch, no sales pitch, just come enjoy pancakes with us.

Even greater than getting to be a part of this myself, I'm excited to have the high school students involved. During the presby student advocacy and leadership team meeting, we talked a little, but I've been thinking about a lot, how today so many students aren't joining mainline denominations(or, worse, churches at all!). I think making pancakes for the community with others from the chuch today will be a good reminder for all of us that we're connected to something larger than just youth group and that we can make a difference in the community together.

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Today is Auditing test one. Hopefully it'll go well!