Join the music!

I’ve been pretty busy of late, but let me catch you all up to speed. After my wonderful, peaceful, amazing time with my family over Spring Break, I had to return to my university, the place of stress and work. However, this semester I can’t very well say I’ve been all that stressed, because I am only taking three classes, but still, nothing compares to being home. A week after I arrived here, I had to find a way to get back home to attend a wedding. This wasn’t too difficult, though I’m not going to say it was cheap either. I had to rent a car for the weekend and, since I am still relatively young, being less than 25 years old, I have to pay a higher price in order to rent a car. I asked the rental agency if all the cars they had were brand new, and they affirmed that all the cars there were one or two years old. Figures…when I first drove the rental I received after the accident, I was mesmerized by the bright, clean exterior and the spacious interior. Little did I know that it would only take a few days for me to realize I disliked many of the new automatic features of that car. Unfortunately, as I found when I rented another car to go the wedding a week later, all new cars are being programmed with the same ridiculous features. You see, I tend to want to control my technology, not for my technology to control me. Yet, having no choice, I dealt with the frustration and made it home. My fake cousin (part of my family extension) was getting married, so the next day I went to the wedding followed by a very pleasant reception. Since we were not actually blood relations to this family, they ended up being the only people we really new there. 

The following week, after the wedding, it was Jesse’s eighth birthday and my dad’s ___ birthday. Sadly, I was unable to go and celebrate with them, but I gave them a phone call to wish them the best. They must’ve had so much fun surfing! Or maybe this picture my dad sent me recently was not genuine? …

Now I’ll zoom forward to last weekend, since most of the intermediate time was spent tutoring math, reading, studying, taking tests, and doing homework. Last weekend I went on a mini-retreat which was to prepare me for a leadership conference during the end of May. I volunteered to be a coach on the retreat, and the purpose of a coach is to lead discussions within a small group and be a Christian witness. I have rarely ever been in a leadership role and, to tell you the truth, it scares me a bit. However, I know God is with me and will give me the wisdom I’ll need. I would appreciate prayer for this upcoming leadership conference. In the past, I have heard that this conference has seen a number of Muslims and others of different religions being saved. So, this mini-retreat I went on was specifically for acquainting the coaches with their responsibilities and to give them an over-view of the conference. We had several fun leadership and teamwork activities. One in particular that I thought was rather new and interesting, was a simulated emergency, where a volcano erupted causing everyone in each group to have a different injury; including loss of both arms, loss of one arm and one leg, paralysis from the neck down, mute, and blind. We, as a group, had to go on a mission to get a couple supplies, have one person healed, and return back to the starting location. We stayed together by holding onto a rope. The person who was paralyzed and the person who was missing one arm and one leg needed the most help, being carried or needing someone to lean on. I, on the other-hand, was unable to be much help because I was blind. Someone was very thoughtful and gave me a stick, so the stick helped me feel out the terrain, but I still needed someone to warn me of steps or roots. It was a very interesting experience, not having the sense I valued the most. Although, when we gathered together to un-brief the activity, I realized almost everyone else was able to use their disability to help others. We had other similar fun activities requiring teamwork. At one point we walked around that campus praying for the conference. During this time, I ran across a frog on the side of the path. Naturally, I could not resist picking it up and thanking God for His glorious creation. This camp, Camp Caraway, was extremely peaceful and beautiful, the ideal place to commune with God. 

Today was a day I had been feeling a little nervous about since my big car accident; I was issued a subpoena to go to court as a witness today. I had to wait an hour for our case to be called and dealt with, but the judge seemed very reasonable and just when dealing with the other cases, so I wasn’t scared of him at all. When we were finally called, I was only asked to confirm that there were no injuries and that the officer’s statement was accurate. As I told my friend, Reese, who was so kind as to drive me to court and back, I was a little disappointed. I was expecting to be a little more involved (similar to court cases on many of the mystery shows I’ve seen). As it was, I’m relieved it’s over. Now I can resume my inconvenient, car-less (as opposed to careless) life. I feel bad having to depend so entirely on others, making them have to change their schedules around me if I ever need to go anywhere. Perhaps I should get better acquainted with the whole bus system.