Thanksgiving Break

Thanksgiving Break was this past week. I enjoyed the break from school work and had a lot of fun. Now there are only 9 days left in the semester. Finals are next week, and then I'll be done and home on Friday. It seems weird that the semester is almost over. It went by quickly. This semester was good in many ways, but it was hard in others, and so I am glad to see the semester come to a close. I look forward to starting over next semester with a new schedule, new classes, and hopefully a renewed focus.

This weekend is Campus Christmas and so everyone's buzzing about preparing for Christmas Open Dorms, which I mentioned in my last post. My unit's theme is Home for the Holidays. Each one of the 8 rooms will be decorated in a way to represent 8 different states that are represented by people living in my unit. Because there are quite a few of us from Ohio, a few of us had to join other states. My roommate and I have been split up because we are both from Ohio. I will be in another room adopting Virginia as my "home state" while my room becomes transformed into New Hampshire. Aside from the rooms, the bathroom will be decorated like a Roadside Diner, and the two lounges will be a travel agency and a rest stop. It should turn out really well. I'm excited about it. Hopefully I will have pictures to put on here after this weekend so you can see how everything turned out. Until then, I will leave you with these pictures.

These are pictures from a Wal-Mart adventure that took place Sunday afternoon. Dylan and I were trying to convince Tammy that she absolutely needed to buy this 2-disc christmas cd that came with a dvd of a fire in a fireplace. I know, it sounds lame, and it kind of is, but it was fun at the time. The only way she would agree to buy it was if I went out to Wal-Mart dressed in the silly clothes that I had been wearing, and the only way I would agree to do that was if Dylan dressed like it too. So here you go. Pictures of our crazy outfits, and then wearing those outfits to Taco Bell, because we also convinced Tammy that she needed to buy lunch. What can I say? When you're good, you're good.

Dan saw how cool we looked and decided to join in. Actually he probably just wanted free Taco Bell

Everybody's Doing It.

The reason I started a blog was because "everybody else was doing it", so now that everyone has decided to update their looks and change their blog backgrounds I figured, why fight the tide?

This week has been super busy with homework and exams and papers that need to be written. My goal for the weekend is to write 2 papers and I did one yesterday so technically I'm halfway there. Granted I wrote the 4-5 page paper yesterday and today calls for an 8-10 page paper, *note that I have done zero preparation for this paper, but I plan to just sit down and write start to finish. We'll see how that goes.

Nothing super exciting is going on. Thursday night I went to a birthday party. (and let that be a friendly reminder that my own birthday is merely two months away and you should start preparations.......now. Cash, Checks and All Major DEBIT Cards are accepted. ;) ) Last night I watched the movie Disturbia. I knew it was going to be suspenseful, but I think I would rate it as scary. Overall it was a decent movie, but I don't want to watch it again. Tonight my unit and our brother unit will be going out to eat and then shopping at Wal-Mart because we are putting shoeboxes together for Operation Christmas Child. And then on Wednesday I will be shopping again because my biblestudy smallgroup leader decided that our group should put together a shoebox too. Then next weekend is parents weekend, and that should be fun.

Other than that it's mostly just work, homework and studying trying to get everything done before Thanksgiving break because after that I only have one week of classes and then finals week. I did find out a cool tradition that Cedarville does for Christmas that weekend before finals week. It's called Christmas Open Dorms, where all of the units/halls come up with a theme to decorate their hall and then judges go through and choose a winner, and after your time is over to present your hall then you get to walk around to other dorms to see what everyone else came up with. My unit has a pretty good idea in the works, but I'll say more about that once it is finalized and closer to the time.

New Roommates

I now have 2 fish that reside in my room. One is mine and one is my roommate's. They live in the same bowl and so far they haven't tried to eat each other so that is pretty exciting. The picture isn't so great, but then again I haven't met too many fish that are photogenic. They are both in the top corner. Mine is yellow, its name is Sushi, and hers is red, its name is Caviar. Clever, right? Yes that is a debit card inside the fish bowl. The bowl was looking empty and my roommate had an old debit card so I stuck it in there, and the rest is history. Well ....... yeah ..... that's the story of my new fish. Sorry, I'm not feeling very wordy today, but hey, at least I posted, right?

Pick-A-Date

This past Saturday night my unit participated in Pick-A-Date. Pick-A-Date is where roommates pick out dates for each other and then all of the girls in the unit and their dates go out for a big group date/activity. The catch is that you keep the person's date a secret so that you don't find out who you are going with until you meet them that night. For my roommate Melissa's date I chose a guy that she knew from studying in Oxford over the summer. She is an Athletic training major and her date, Brandon, plays baseball so I knew that they still has some contact with each other. I wanted to be sure to pick someone she would have a good time with because I guess she didn't have the best time when she went on a Pick-A-Date last year. Much to my relief she did end up having a good time. While her date was someone she knew, my date was someone I had never met. For my date, she picked some guy that she had met maybe once or twice last year. His name was Brad and he was a very nice guy. It actually wasn't as awkward as I imagined it would be and we all seemed to have a fun time.

For our date we went to an outdoor mall, called The Greene, and did a photo scavenger hunt. You would have to go to different stores and take a picture doing different poses that related to the store, and the number of people required to be in the picture was dependent on what the pose was. Unfortunately there was no point system, and therefore no real competition, but in my humble opinion, our group was definitely the winner. After the scavenger hunt we came back to campus and had ice cream and played games. Overall, the night was really fun, and because we did a PHOTO scavenger hunt, I have pictures! Some of them are blurry, but you can make most of them out pretty well. My "date" Brad and I are both wearing orange (no it wasn't planned) and then my roommate and her "date" Brandon are the ones not in orange.

Being Flamingos by the fountain

"Bathing" at Bath & Body Works

"Awkward Couple Pose" on a bench

Parking at the parking meter

"Singing in the Rain" pose

"Lofting" outside of some store called Loft

Crossing the finish line at Finish Line sporting goods store

Outside of Victoria's Secret

Showing off our nails at the nail salon

We are so buff (way off in the distance is an Urban Active store)

Fish pose outside of a seafood restaurant

Outside of Caribou Coffee

Printy Wars!

This past Tuesday night was the annual Printy Wars. Printy is the name of my dorm, and I've probably explained this before, but Printy is set up as a unit-style dorm with 4 rooms in a unit connected to its co-unit by the bathroom. So all of the units and their co-unit are a team competing against all of the other units in various silly, fun games. Each unit is supposed to come up with a theme to dress up. Some units just wear matching t-shirts and other do themes. My unit decided to be gansters, eh hem, excuse me...... ganstas. I'm a pretty lame gansta but some of the girls could really pull it off. We played a bunch of different crazy games, from human musical chairs to 2-liter chugging contests and stuff like that. It was really fun, although my unit didn't win any of the games. We did get really close though. (And I did manage to contain my competitiveness so as not to scare anyone away) I've included some pictures for your viewing pleasure. However, my roommate refused to participate in Printy Wars because she didn't want to make a fool of herself so she's not in any of these pictures, so you don't have to ask which one she is.

The whole crew, gang, posse, whatever

This is a picture of one of the games where you had to eat the food on the plate as fast as you could. There was gross stuff like cold refried beans, jalapenos, etc. As you can see I wasn't one of the partakers, just a spectator.

These next few are examples of what happens when gangstas try to dance. It's not pretty.

This is a game where you had to pop 4 balloons filled with flour using only your stomach. We didn't actually break any of them, but it's harder than it looks.

And here is proof that we don't dress up like gangstas all of the time.

And there you have it. My short lived experience as a gansta. This is actually the second time I've had to dress up for an event. Earlier in the year we played in a beachball volleyball tournament where we all dressed in black & white and painted our faces. It makes me wonder what other crazy costumes I'm going to have to come up with before the year is over.




*Sorry the pictures are so dark, but it was around 11 o'clock when were taking them.

The Light are On and The Wheels are Turning

The electricity is back on! It came on around 11pm last night so we had classes today. Many people were disappointed to have the power on because that meant we would have class, but I was more than ready to be able to turn the lights on again and have the air conditioning work because it was pretty warm in the dorms with all of those people and not much ventilation. Yesterday evening was pretty good though. I ended up going to Olive Garden with a big group of people. I must have a smaller budget than most people if they can afford to pay $15 a plate. I got soup. Only $4.95, you can't beat that. Although, I must confess that I had to get dessert because they had their seasonal Pumpkin Cheesecake available and it's probably the best I've had. I had it once before around this time last year after I won a gift card to Olive Garden at one of the silly programs they had at Akron. Then after dinner I watched a movie with a couple of people. We watched "You've Got Mail". I think that movie is growing on me. It reminds me of being home (in Norwalk), I guess because I've heard it quoted so much. After that I was glad to go to bed, and so happy that my fan was working so that I could actually sleep. So now things are pretty much back to a normal schedule.

~Warning: I'm about to transition into deep stuff and let you know the things that have been going on in my head lately. Again, you have been forewarned. Continue at your own risk.~

Well, you see, the end of one life can easily lead to the examination of your own life, so I've been thinking about my own life: what I'm doing with it, what could I be doing that I'm not, what does God really want me to do, etc. You get the picture. A couple of things have been rolling around in my head as I consider these questions about my life, and they are that quote that I can only roughly paraphrase because I don't exactly remember it, but it says how "out of pain, purpose is revealed" or something like that, and Ecclesiastes 7:3 which says "Sorrow is better than laughter, for sadness has a refining influence on us".

Purpose and refining are the two concepts that have consumed much of my thought life. I've never considered sadness to be refining before I read this verse, but it immediately makes sense.... to me anyways. My attitude towards God throughout dealing with this situation of Daniel's death has been "Ok God, if I am going to have to walk through this circumstance, then you are going to have to teach me something, and I need it to be something deeper than the obvious lesson about the "frailty of life" ". I really want to come away from this situation with an increase in wisdom, in strength and in trust of God, so I've been constantly asking him to teach me and to speak to me.

In doing some reflection I was reminded of a line in one of the verses of a song that I wrote about a year ago. The line says "I can't remember life ever being as hard as it is right now". As you all remember, I had started my first year of college then and I was having a hard time trying to trust God through my struggling. So when I wrote that verse at that time in my life it was true. At that point in my life I was going through the hardest time in my life that I could remember. However, that verse is even more true for right now. Right now is the hardest time in my life, and in comparison it makes last year's "test" seem slightly insignificant, even easy. I have learned a lot from last year's experience, but it seems interesting that what was so hard last year, is so much less in comparison to what is hard this year. It kind of compells me to think of life as a series of tests; however, I'm not necessarily saying that is a bad thing. If passing one test provides me with the necessary skills to move on to the next test, and if through these series of tests I continually grow in strength, and wisdom and the trust in God that leads me down the road to fulfilling my destiny, then it's almost as if my heart cry has become "God, if this is what it takes, then bring on the testing". And in my head I can't believe that I would say that to God because this sitution has been hard and it hurts, but despite all of that my heart is still so committed to God that I can't help myself from asking for the tests because it's through the testing and the struggles that I will be refined, and my purpose will be revealed.

So I guess so far what I've gained from this is just a reminder of my own committment to God and to accomlishing his will. I've found myself lately just reminding God, not that he really needs it, that I'm not going anywhere, I'm totally committed to him, and that whatever his purposes for me are and wherever that takes me I'm going there and I'm doing it. I'm still expecting to learn much more, but this is a good start.

There you have it. Insight into the deep sea of my mind. Hopefully it all made sense. It's kind of a jumbled mess, but it's the best I could do for now. If you actually made it this far, I'm impressed. This is a long post. I'll shorten it up for next time.

Power Outage

The power has been out on campus since 1:30pm. It was super windy yesterday. Part of the roof of the chapel blew off as well as some shingles off of the dorms, not to mention several tree limbs....... and corn stalks. They waited until 10:00pm to announce that classes were canceled for today. All of the girls in my unit and I went to Wendy's to celebrate last night after we heard that classes were canceled, but it was a short trip because everything is about a 20min. drive from cedarville and we have a 12am curfew on Sundays, although I'm not sure how they could enforce it. Then we played ninja capture the flag. It's a mix of capture the flag and hide-n-seek in the dark. The power is still off and I've heard that it MIGHT be back on some time tonight. I went with some of the unit girls to one of their Aunt's house that was only about 30min. away and has power and wireless internet. Hence the update inspite of the power outage. I'm definitely bored with this power outage and I hope that the power gets turned back on soon. Other than that, everything with me is fine. I'll end this update with some pictures of my dorm since no has seen it. I meant to put these pictures up a couple of weeks ago, but I never got around to it.

1 Week Down....... Several More to Go

I've now finished my first week of college here at Cedarville. Overall, I would have to say that things went well. All my classes seem like they will be pretty interesting, although lots of reading seems to be inevitable. I also got a job already. I'm working at "The Hive". It's a little snack shop in the student center. It seems pretty similar to what I did last year at The Trackside Grille so it should be easy and hopefully fun. My first day of working was last night. I was excited to start working but also a little bit disappointed because all the girls in my unit (dorm) and co-unit (the dorm connect to mine by the bathroom) were going out for ice cream and then to Target. I had to miss that, but they did bring me back some ice cream and I watched the second half of Evan Almighty with them when I got back, so I guess things worked out pretty well. Today our units are competing in a Beachball Volleyball tournament so that should be good for a few laughs, if nothing else, but I have to leave that early too so that I can go to work.

Add some homework and a drawing I have to do for my Drawing 1 class into the mix and that's what I'll be doing this weekend. I'm not sure about what I'll be doing for church tomorrow, but I guess I'll figure that out soon enough. I'm pretty much just trying to get adjusted to my new surroundings and back into the swing of college life. After being home for 3 months I kind of forgot what it felt like to be away. I miss everybody at home, but overall I would say I am doing well.

Wrapping Up the Semester

I only have 5 days left of the semester before I come home for the summer. This semester went by so much faster than the last one. It's hard to believe that I am finishing my first year of college, but it's so exciting too. My blog posts have been .......... sporadic at best, but I'll attempt to quickly fill in the blanks for all 3.8 of my dedicated readers.

Classes have been fine. I'm hoping for all A's, but it's possible that a B might slip in there. We'll have to see. Work has been going equally well. So well in fact that they gave me a bonus. That's about all that is new with work and classes since March, which was the last time I posted.

Now for the fun stuff. I've been keeping busy with service projects, late night trips to restaurants, attending a baseball game, a zoo trip, and a surprise party............. Surprise! It was a party for me! And because no blog post is complete without pictures, I've included these images for your viewing pleasure.

These are pictures from the service project. In the morning we volunteered at a homeless shelter called Haven of Rest (1st picture). I believe it's claim to fame is that LeBron James volunteered there before. woo hoo? Then in the afternoon we went to the Salvation Army and painted a hallway for them. That would be the hallway in the second picture. Looks like I'm doing a great job supervising.

Late that night a couple of us went to Steak n Shake. Apparently they will give those ridiculous hats to anyone who asks for one so hey, why not? The white paint on my shirt matches nicely with the white hat.


I went to a Kent v. Akron baseball game that was held downtown at the Akron Aeros Stadium (minor league team). We lost by 1 and I almost got hit by a foul ball while trying to give DA & Belle directions over the phone, but it was a good time.



Here we are at the Cleveland Zoo. That was as fun as it could possibly be for me, but my feelings for the zoo haven't changed. We literally were there from opening to closing. By the the end of the day when we were getting ready to go to the rain forest one of the girls in our group had lost her ticket and the ticket booths were closed. I "selflessly" offered my ticket to her and I stayed outside. She thought I was being so nice, but really I just could not take any more of the zoo!



After the zoo was the surprise party. I was completely unsuspecting. It was a going away party for me because I'm transferring schools next semester. They made awesome desserts for me and made this big E and they signed it for me. If you don't know the story behind "Big E" I'm not going to write it here because it's not a very exciting story, but if you really want to know I will be home soon and you can ask me then.

Overall, this semester has been a great time and a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to it being over and summer being here, but it's also a little bit sad. But I'm excited to be moving on to what's next for me. So there you go, the second part of my semester in a nutshell.

So.....I guess I'll Update Now

Well, I've been thinking about blogging for awhile & it's the thought that counts right? Right!...... or not. Anyways, overall things have been going well. I've been working often so I should have enough money to buy a car after the semester is over. I actually got interviewed by ZTV (the college sponsored television station) while I was at work today because of the new ice cream part of the restaurant that we opened up. So I'll be on tv, but I'm pretty sure nobody actually watches ZTV.

Classes are fine. I had a midterm exam last week in Political Research and I'm pretty sure I did awesome so I better be looking at an "A" in that class. I've got a spanish test tomorrow and then a HUGE test in Campaign finances on Thursday. Campaign Finances is one of those wonderful classes where your grade consists of 2 tests and a final paper so this is our first grade. I started studying today so I should be good by Thursday. I've gotten "A's" on both of my speeches so far. I guess I'm a natural. I should probably start working on my papers soon though. By this time last semester I probably would've had at least one of them written by now. oh well.

Student government is going equally well. I've been attending the meetings and helping out with programs. I also use the required office hour that I have to work to do homework. It doesn't get much better than that.

I've also done some fun things. A couple of weeks ago when school was canceled on a Tuesday I went sledding with a group of friends. They are now convinced that I am the champ at sledding. I'm not exactly sure what skills are required to be a champion sledder, but apparently I have them, and I like that title so I'll take it. I was supposed to go sledding again this past weekend but the roads were too bad to go on Saturday and I had to work during the day yesterday so I missed it. How dumb is it when it snows so much that you can't even go sledding. Needless to say Saturday was the most boring day of my life. Sunday was better though. I got to work some extra hours because people called off, so that's more money to add to the car fund, then after work I went to Apple Bee's with a couple of my friends, Katie & Megan. We were meeting up at Apple Bee's with 4 guys from Saudi Arabia that Megan knows from working with the international group on campus. Did you read that Shagga? Saudi Arabia. Now I have friends around the nations too. :) They were a fun group so I had a good time.

Now I'm just looking forward to the end of this week so I can be on Spring Break! So I'll see you all 3.7 of my dedicated readers very soon!

Ahmed, Megan & Abdullah / Amr, Katie & Myself

It's Party Time!

This past Friday I went with a group of friends to go "lunar" bowling. It sounds cheesy I know, but what can you do? We all met at my friend Megan's house and had dinner. Then at 10pm we set out to go lunar bowling. Then after bowling some of the girls (including myself) stayed the night and we made pancakes and donuts for breakfast in the morning. I had a fun time and have included a pictorial overview of the night. However, there are no pictures of me bowling because at this bowling alley you had to show your ID in order to get in after 9:30pm and I didn't know so I had to run (drive) back to the house with my friend Lauren to get my ID so I missed out on those kodak moments