Sunday, March 16, 2008

Spring Break '08

This past week was my spring break and I opted to go for more of a Chicago style spring break instead of the beach. Um, actually it was a decision that my bank account made for me:) But I am thankful for the chance to have a slower week around here. This semester has been busy so it was nice to have a chance to play a little around here. My friend Kelsey stuck around as well so we had some adventures around town (That's us taking the very touristy picture of our reflection in the bean). I'm also proud (or not so proud) to report that I finished watching all the episodes of Felicity. I also managed to finish my taxes and give my room a good cleaning which revealed a long lost flip-flop that has been missing since this past summer.


Another spring break accomplishment that I'm not so proud to report is that I managed to get into my first Chicago car accident. Oh yes, it's true and it was totally my fault. But everyone was ok (except my poor car) and it's already being fixed. So for the time being I am enjoying driving a nice red Ford Focus from Enterprise and eating my humble pie.




Kelsey and I also took in a historical Chicago event on Saturday morning as the Chicago river was dyed green (for St. Patty's day). Having never witnessed this before I didn't really think that the river could get much greener but apparently I was wrong. The dump all this dye in which looks orange at first and then eventually turns the river bright green. As we stood there among the crown waiting to witness this unique event Kelsey asked, "How do you think those geese feel about this whole thing". I can't imagine that it's fun for them to now live in florescent green water but who knows. I'm glad I can add this experience to my list of things I've seen in my life.

So that was my spring break, a pretty good week all in all. Plus today I wasn't feeling well at all but that gave me more of an excuse to watch basketball and get excited for March Madness. Some other things that I'm looking forward to is my trip to Baltimore this week to spend Easter weekend with some of my family and then the week after that Sophie is coming to Chicago for her Spring Break. For now, I'm going to bed to fit off this cold.

Women's Retreat

As an intern with UMIN we all work together on somethings but then are other things that we work on by ourselves. My main responsibility this semester was heading up a Women's Retreat. It's funny to me that this is where I was pouring in most of my time because I typically would not be the type of person who would sign up for a women's retreat. As stressful as it was at times to make sure that everything was getting done to make this weekend work I'm glad that I had the chance to be apart of this retreat. I was struck by how many amazing women I have met in the past year and a half of being back around NPU. So many of these girls I can call my friends and I look forward to our coffee dates and conversations throughout the week. I have the tendency to get caught up in the details of pulling off a weekend like this and I forget the people that will be involved. So sitting there on the floor Friday night it was moving for me to look around the room and realized how much I love those girls. I think that there has been apart of me that still hasn't gotten over my time as dean at CBC and my ministry there. What I mean is that I wasn't really sure how I would ever really love students as deeply as I had at CBC. But this weekend helped realize that I have moved past that and thst my time here in Chicago has been made so rich by the students that I have gotten to know here.