Wednesday, August 20, 2008

what an eventful day

Today was the "big day" of Threshold, our new student orientation at NPU. It was a very eventful day.



My roommate and I woke up this morning a little after 6:00am, which, after a summer of eight-to-nine o'clock mornings was a bit early for me, and went to our little meeting and ate bagels (spelled "bagles" in our schedule). Then we moved people in at our assigned residence halls and I got to leave early to do computer orientation sessions, a total of three for the day, which brings me up to the grand total of fourteen computer orientation sessions. WAAAY to many for anyone. I'm a pro.



Lunch was absolutely grand, as usual. We have this massive picnic where a bunch of profs come and sit in these little tents and new students can come and meet them. By some strange coincidence, the department of Christian Life & Thought and the School of Music always end up in the same tent, which I find absolutely hilarious because I have one foot in each discipline. So funny!



I had a meeting in the afternoon for "all" of the PAAs (there were about six of us...woot) and the new Dialogue adjuncts, and then my adjunct and I met the parents of our class. I'm honestly a bit nervous about the two of us working together because I have this complex...well, we'll see how it goes.



After this meeting was the CREW Kick-Off, my baby. This was my personal project this summer/yesterday (I ran a meeting where we decided together how to organize it), and I was very nervous about how it would go over, especially when the woman I still thought was in charge handed over the reigns. I've just been so spacey all week and I wasn't really prepared to direct people, but it worked out. In fact, Seth was an absolutely fantastic emcee and he really pulled it all together. The students were so excited, and I didn't see a single one not participating, which is a small miracle. So, even though there were some staff coordination issues that were totally my fault, there were no noticeable glitches in the actual event.

Convocation...ah, convocation. I believe I must be the biggest nerd of all time, but I simply love convocation (and commencement, for that matter--anything with robes). Once again, I ended up sitting toward the front and was able to smile at nearly everyone I knew. I was grinning the entire time. Convocation is much too short...oh, well.

The rest of the evening was absolutely insane. I met a young man by the name of Joshua and we ate together in ARA, we had Viking Kick-Off which is one of my favorite events of Threshold because we all run around in crazy clothes behaving the idiots we truly are inside. =) Then, Comedy Sportz did their bit and everything wrapped up at about 10:30...whew.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

good teachers series

Scot McKnight over at Jesus Creed (see link on blog roll) is working through What the Best College Teachers Do and it's proving to be a very informative series. If you are a college teacher or are planning to be, or work in ministry, or are just interested in ways to create space for students to learn and to learn to think for themselves, then I suggest checking this out. I might even buy the book, which is a huge deal since I'm currently textbook-shopping!

And I was just vividly reminded of how incredibly nerdy I am. Seriously.

Peace

nearly settled

I am completely moved in to my new apartment along with two of my four roommates, and it's so great. It was a long, hard week of packing and moving (we're on the third floor, no elevators) and gouging-out of drywall, and bruises...so many bruises. But the joy that I am experiencing right now erases all of that.

This whole summer I was feeling very displaced. I lived with my parents, and while I love them and their house is lovely, I just never really settled in there and felt the whole time like I was on some strange vacation. It made it very difficult for me to get any work done, and I was anxious much of the time. When I could make it back to the city, it was like a glorious homecoming--except it wasn't really my home. I was staying with my roommates, so it felt sort of like home (and they did a fantastic job of welcoming me), but I knew it wasn't really. So this whole summer I've been feeling very floaty and strange. Now that I'm back, I don't intend to leave. Ever. I mean, I'll probably move out of Chicago in a few years, but I'm not going back to my parents' house again, especially not with all of this furniture!

Peace

Friday, August 8, 2008

moving day = really really sore

I feel compelled to recount my moving-day experience from Wednesday. I brought a lot of things to school with me and helped my roommates move in, and it was a blast--and very, very eventful! To set the stage, the plan was for me to come up and start moving people into our third-floor apartment at 4pm, with one of my roommates out of town and the other working at 7pm. The moving "time" was 4-10pm, and I have no idea how anyone thought that four (or five) girls could move into an apartment in six hours...

My family and I packed up the truck Tuesday night in a way that prevented me from being able to use the rearview mirror at ALL, which was a source of anxiety as I drove up. I was able to follow a relatively slow truck that was hauling some sort of liquid, so that was good. I arrived on campus at about 3:20 and took the next ten minutes to get situated in a parking spot with a Beverly Hillbilly truckload of furniture with the bed extended and a bike strapped to the end of that, after which I climbed on top of my dresser and read for about a half hour. Kat went to get checked in at 4pm but it took her nearly a half hour to do that, so we didn't get to move anything in until about 4:45.

Christina came by and helped at this point, but the going was slow. We finally did get all of my junk out of the truck, up the three flights of stairs, and into the apartment. We drove over to the girls' summer place and I went upstairs--I won't share my exact words when I walked in and saw all of the stuff that had to go, but it was something like, "Crap!...OH MY GOSH! CRAP!" Good times. We started reloading the truck but then Christina had to go to work at her other job (one of three, currently) so then it was just me and Kat and Matthew (praise God for Matthew). After we dumped this load in the apartment, Matthew did rounds and Kat and I put some things away to make room for the rest of the stuff, and then we all went to McDonald's for dinner.

At about 8:30 I finally called Jaron to say that we were ready to get Mel's loft out of his storage space, and I went over to the Taj to get it. When I got there, Jaron asked how I was and I had a pounding headache at the time, so we went inside to get some drugs (great apartment, by the way). Well, as goes my relationship with Jaron, we ended up talking for an hour before I asked what time it was, and we could have talked for much longer. So sad that we had to move. =( So we took the loft over and brought it all the way up, at which point I lost my keys.

Jaron checked his pockets, I checked the truck, we all checked the apartment--no keys. We were searching for at least thirty minutes, but likely closer to forty-five, and to no avail. I called my dad at 11:20ish to ask if he could meet us at a halfway point and he grudgingly agreed. We went out to the car to push it into a more appropriate parking space, and Jaron decided to paw through his pockets once more. I was talking to Kat when he said, "Heather, call your dad," and pulled out my keys! I was so happy that I just laughed and hugged him and called my dad, and we all had a good laugh.

By then it was 11:30 and I had already kept Jaron much longer than I should have, and we were supposed to have checked out of the old apartment at 10:00, and there was still a lot more stuff to be moved. Matthew called me and I asked him if everything really needed to be out before we slept, and he said it did. Grr! So, Jaron stuck around (Lord, bless him) and we got the last bits of it with some help from Matthew and Josh, and we were finally finished. It was all over at about 1:15. Christina and Katrina went to sleep and I stayed up and put things away as much as I could, and Christina got up for work around 3:45. I left the apartment at 4:27, arrived home at 5:22, and went to sleep around 5:45am. Two days later I'm sore as can be, and my right leg is very stiff and practically useless. I have muscles hurting that I can't stretch, so I'm off to take a hot bath.

Many thanks to Jaron, Matthew, and Josh for all of their help. We couldn't have done it without you!...I'm never moving again unless all roommates are present. =)

Peace

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

packing, packing, packing galore

Packing like ya neva neva seen bafore!

Okay, so I'm a little tired. I just spend the last two hours packing up my Mom's truck (yes, my MOM's truck) with furniture and anything else that I own that would fit. *sigh* It was truly exhausting, but quite possibly the most intellectually challenging activity in which I've recently participated. Something about all of that organization of three-dimensional objects...it's like Tetris for super-nerds! I was having a blast, and so was my dad, whose help was invaluable.

It's a rather small truck, as far as pick-up trucks go; it's a little Nissan Frontier with a full cab which means, unfortunately, that the bed is a bit smaller. Like, I can barely lie down in it. BUT, inside that teeny little bed we were able to fit my dresser (drawers and funny cabinet thing full of stuff), desk (also full of stuff), dining room table and chairs (table's in pieces), and nearly everything else that I own that's not furniture. Plus a bunch of stuff in the cab.

What we have left to take to Chicago, hopefully on Saturday:
*the big red sectional
*my chair
*the tv stand/entertainment center thingy
*the leaves for the table (unless I can miraculously fit them in the overflowing truck tomorrow morning)
*TV
*what little remains of my clothing
I think we might actually be able to do it in the truck, but if not, we'll just take my car up as well. And both of my parents so that the vehicles can be returned to their house. It's so much stuff, but when I think about it, it's basically all the common furniture for the apartment, plus all of my personal furniture and clothing and dishes and books and office supplies and...

This is so fun. Tomorrow is going to ROCK!

Peace

Sunday, August 3, 2008

reminder: Cindy-loo's fabulous adventure

Just in case anyone has forgotten or lost the link (I originally typed "think") to Cindy's blog, here's your last chance. It seems that her experiences in Bolaskoxfordia have been absolutely fantastic, and I am thoroughly envious of her! However, I am truly happy that she is enjoying herself and learning a lot, and proud that she defied the grass laws at Oxford (read the blog!). We can't wait to have you back, Cindy!!

Peace

Friday, August 1, 2008

okay, what happened??

I know I say this all the time, but I simply canNOT believe how fast time flies!! Seriously! Okay, my last post was Tuesday and I said something to the effect of, "Okay, guys, I'm moving back to school in eleven days"...guess what--it's FRIDAY. Late Friday. And Monday and Tuesday I'll be in Michigan, and then Wednesday I'll be up at school helping the girls move in (two of whom will not be present for the entire move, leaving me and one other roommate to "finish up"), which basically leaves me four days to get all of my crap together. Here's what's left:

*finish a solid draft of the plagiarism workshop so that I can have a 'usable' draft by the 10th
*prepare a timeline for the CREW kickoff rally thing in five-minute increments
*finish the last seven books of Augustine's Confessions
*pack everything I own
*decide what's coming to the city with me on Wednesday and what can stay until Saturday
*find out how much money I need from the Threshold budget to buy poster-making supplies
*create some sort of schedule for Compass week so that I can work both jobs...

Don't get me wrong, folks--I'm totally not complaining!! I'm actually very excited to have made it to August alive and not completely bored (in fact, rather enthused about life in general), and also with all of my sanity still intact. God has definitely preserved me and my joi de vivre this summer, and he just continues to surprise me (see Tuesday's post on what I learned at Carol's). I'm just sayin' that time just whizzed by me much faster than I had anticipated, and now I'm paying for it!! Here's to time management!

Peace