The Ankle

So It's not pretty, but it's mostly functional. I have a definate limp, and going down stairs is pretty awful, but other than that it's just really tight and stiff. I will say that I totally undervalue walking most of the time...

Fall Weekend

Today I came home from fall weekend. This year we went to Camp Kern in Orgonia with 3 guys and 8 girls. Most of them have been coming around long enough to have all been to either camp, fall weekend or both before, but as we stopped having club for the rest of semester for lack of vision among our group we thought this would be a really good opportunity to re-inspire a desire for Young Life to be a tool for sharing Christ.

The weekend started with Wyoming's win in the quarter finals of the State Football Playoffs. That makes them regional champs! It was a great game that Wyoming really dominated expect for poor clock management and turnovers in the red zone. I think the school they played might have had 150 yards of total offense in the game, and their only scoring drive had a huge freak play. Ultimately the better team won, which, yea for us, was Wyo. They next play on Friday night a Dayton's Welcome Stadium (worst field name in all of sports...possibly). The Stadium was/is really awesome though. There is a ton of parking and the field is really nice. The only drawback is that the stands are somewhat distant from the field because of a track, and if it's the same announcer as last week he sounds like he's calling a pirates game on a 110 degree day in august. It was a lot of fun being at the game Friday in part because as they get further in the playoffs a ton of graduates are coming back to see the games and I've had the opportunity to catch up with a lot of them. I think in their eyes being there still in a way adds credibility to the time I spent with them when they were in high school. So the football game ended at about 10PM in Dayton. We left ASAP and arrived about 10 minutes before club started (perfect).

For me it was sort of added fun because the speaker was a guy named Randy Nickels (spelling?) who was the guy who spoke at Champion when I was on Work Crew. Since then he has been running all over the world (Africa & Scotland) starting Young Life and sharing Christ with communities there. He was a pretty good speaker as far as speakers go. he didn't use and illustration really, but I still thought that his presentation of the gospel was clear and understandable. I felt like talking with kids about stuff (granted we took Christians) was easy and productive for their faith and fellowship as well and their vision for what Young Life could be if they wanted to invest in it. I guess like anything else though it's easy to be excited about things while they are happening and hard to follow through went the payoff is far away. All in all though, I felt good about the way things went. Maybe the focal point of the weekend, or at least the part I will most remember happened Saturday afternoon while all the guys were playing soccer. I jumped up in the air and came down wrong on my left ankle. I sprained it pretty badly and was rolling around writhing in pain for a few minutes (waiting for the hurt to go away). After a couple minutes I had some ice, and I was sitting on the field with my ankle resting on the ice. A group of people were standing around (like people do when someone gets hurt) and out of nowhere this football comes on a line drive right through a gap in the semicircle of people standing over me and blasts me right in the face. I guess these other kids where kicking field goals about 20 yards away and shanked one right at me. At the time, it hurt a lot (amazingly no one laughed) but it was really funny thinking about it now. Unfortunately my ankle is jank and will be for a while. I can walk, but it's not comfy for sure. Hopefully I'll be able to get my boots on tomorrow otherwise I have to go see a doctor...my work is sort of dumb about missing a day.

In spite of getting hurt & sleeping on a sheet of plywood I did have a really great time, and I think it was good for everyone who went. Now I am just looking forward to working a little and eating a lot this week as well as the STATE SEMI FINALS on Friday!

Fall Break

Tonight I officially washed my hands of my first term at Cincinnati State. I thought I was done last night, but one of my teacher called me tonight to ask for something he lost; I had to do about 12 seconds of work attaching a file to an email and that was that. My grades aren't online until tomorrow, but I unofficially collected 8 credits worth of A's this fall to add to my ever lengthening transcript-and that was just early fall. I am currently registered for 8 credit hours starting on this coming Monday, however there is a strong chance 6 more get added to that pending a pre req exemption from a professor. So 14 credits...Mondays and Wednesdays 6-9 and Thursdays 5-11, and then there's some sort of online class (unknown difficulty). Don't go back you read it correctly, I have class until 11 PM on Thursday nights until early February. With that in mind if you want anything from me on Friday you might be better served waiting a day. I really don't know how that's going to go to be honest. Maybe they're bluffing in the course description and it'll end at 10 every week, maybe it'll be like this quarter and run over a half hour some weeks and end really early others, maybe it'll snow a foot and get cancelled, or snow a foot and meet anyways; I'll just have to wait and see. As far as school is concerned I like it better than anything I ever did at UC. Not only do I see a finish line with an actual job in mind for the first time ever, but Nati State is actually a better run school. It's as if the people there actually want me to succeed, not just at school, but in life. They want me to do well. So being there until after bedtime might not be so better under those circumstances.

At this point you might be saying to yourself, "Self, when is he going to hang out with high school kids?...when is he going to hang out with me?" Well it's not as bad as it sounds. I have some down time at work sometimes where I'm surrounded by engineers who also have occasional down time. Hopefully I'll be able to get a good chunk of whatever hw I have done there. Additionally I still have Tuesday nights and the weekend free to do whatever. I am just going to have to be disciplined with my spare time and actually be productive when I need to get something done. The other super perk I have is that when I get home at 11:30 I won't have to worry about finding dinner because momma will already have something for me. I don't even care if that makes me lame. Oh, as an added bonus, should I wake up late one day I don't have to go to work because they won't let me in if I'm even 1 minute late. In that case I'll have even more time to hang out.

I am praying now this week that the end result of all this business will be increased faithfulness by me. I'm not kidding myself too much here, I know it's going to be rough, but I also know when things are hard for me it makes me more faithful. For one thing I'll have less time to be an idiot. My buddy Joe is preparing a talk on the person of Paul and it got me thinking, he doesn't strike me as a guy who just hung out a lot. I think solitude and down time are important, but maybe not to the extent I am generally accustomed too. having a lot to do is conducive to living life with a sense of urgency, the key is to focus that urgency on Christ. I hope that I will become more dependant on His work and His presence this quarter, especially during the holiday season when I have such an increased opportunity to witness to my family. If you feel like praying for me pray for these things; rest, intelligence, opportunities with friends/family and incite into those opportunities, and faithfulness to what He has called me too.