Exams are done. I have finished my first semester back at GVSU after a 5 year hiatus and it feels so good. I raised my GPA and ended out the year (both fall and winter semesters) with A-, A-, B+, B+, B, B-, B-, C+, and a C. Not great, but pretty good for someone who just isn't a fan of school and used to have multiple F's on her transcript. With the end of this semester comes the beginning of another. Yes, I am taking summer classes. I'll talk about that more later.
Eric's birthday is done. He is officially 22 years old. I remember when I was 22... Sorry, I told Eric I'd stop acting like it's such a big deal. Anyway, I have no pictures to show for it. Apparently they were all erased accidentally when I allowed some students to take pictures on the retreat. I was more than a little sad, but stuff happens and it could have happened to anyone. Regardless, on Wednesday night, I placed a banner on his car that featured Spiderman saying "Happy Birthday" and on his front seat, I placed a bag of sour candy (his favorite). On Thursday morning, after he left for work, his roommate let me sneak into his room and cover his wall with blue post-it notes filled with 98 ways to tell him how much I love him. That evening, after my final exam, I picked him up and took him to PF Chang's for dinner. Following that, we drove around and visited disappointment after disappointment. The arcade was closed and we got to the movie theatre after the movie started because I misread the start time. We ended up at "Cabin in The Woods" at the theatre across the street from PF Chang's. It was a good night in the end, but definitely wasn't what was planned. Hopefully I'll have better luck next year.
The retreat is done. With that, CHAOS Jr has come to a close with this school year. This year will probably be forever remembered as my worst year so far in youth ministry. Due a great number of circumstances, I am really looking forward to this time of relaxation without programming for middle school students. It was rough students. It was rough volunteer situations. It was rough timing with school and stuff. It was rough stuff going on in the kids' lives. I love the kids and I still love my job, it was just... rough. The retreat itself went very well. I couldn't have asked for anything better except a little bit warmer temps on Saturday. If that's my only complaint, I'd say it was a very successful weekend.
The St. Louis trip is done. Immediately following the CHAOS Jr. retreat, I went to the airport to pick up a rental car. I got a cute little Ford Fiesta and loaded it up with luggage for a few days. I picked up Rachael, one of my CHAOS volunteers and we hit the open road very early on Monday morning. We were headed there to check out our living and working environments for a high school mission trip in August. With some Christian hits on Sirius radio, some leftover snacks from the retreat and the excitement of getting to meet our hosts, the 7.5 hour drive didn't seem too bad. We stopped in New Town, MO, a chic suburb of St. Louis to meet Stephanie, former co-pastor of Christ's Church, an RCA church in St. Louis. She showed us their ministry coffee shop called "The Bridge" and talked about some of the St. Louis sights we may want to take in on our mission trip in August. She also gave us some ideas for while we were in town this week, which was nice of her. Then we headed to the church to check out our sleeping and cooking arrangements. After checking everything out, we headed back to the hotel and got settled in there (and took a nap) before heading out on the town. We needed to make sure that the pizza was delicious enough for our teens. We also headed down to check out the arch and the riverfront for ideas on both where to park and where to wander around. On Tuesday, we got in contact with Mark, the director of Oasis International to talk about working with that organization. Oasis International works with refugees from war and helps them get settled into the USA with furniture, English classes, job help, driver's training, clothing and so much more. It was awesome to see first-hand some of the work they're doing and actually get excited about what we'll be doing in August, too! Of course, the drive home was incident free, although VERY rainy. Oh well. It was so hard to turn in the rental car again today, though, and go back to Miss Saturn. I like my car, but Miss Fiesta was much fun to drive these last couple days.
Summer classes start next week. Yes, you heard correctly. I'm taking summer classes. I have either 2 or 3 right now. In the Spring semester, I'm going to be focusing on an independent study and research project called "Latinos and Literacy in West Michigan." I'll be doing service learning with Plaza Comunitaria, an organization promoting Spanish literacy among native Spanish speakers in our area. I'll be doing some reading as well to go with it and keeping a journal. It sounds exciting to me! The other class that I'll be focusing on is Advanced Spanish Grammar, but it doesn't meet until the second half of summer. It should be good.
That, my friends, is what I call a nice, long update on my life.
Enough about me - how are YOU doing?
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