Instead, my "working" consisted of traveling around the world: an unexpected visit to Hong Kong, two weeks in Bangladesh building homes for Cyclone Sidr victims, two weeks at the California Delta enjoying beautiful sunsets and amazing water, and a week of sightseeing in Southern California when some of my friends came from Oregon and Chicago to visit.
I also had a lot of time to just sit and "be" this summer. I am learning to enjoy all the down time because as classes quickly approach I am realizing more and more how little time I have to "be" when there are papers to write and books to read. The only downside to all this downtime has been the amount of time I have had to think! For a summer that was suppossed to be transition free...well there has been way too much change and transition, but that is life! One big thing I have learned this summer (or relearned maybe) is that I think about things too much sometimes. I just need to live life and stop think sooo much!
These last couple weeks of summer I have spent moving into my new place for this year. God was so good to give me an amazing place to live this school year. Just a side-note...I had to move because APU bought the apartment complex I was living in. I am living with three amazing girls...all of whom are in the same Master's program as me. We have a 2 bedroom plus a den (which we are using as a bedroom), 2 bathroom condo. We have a garage, appliances (thank goodness we didn't have to buy a fridge!!), tennis courts, a big kitchen and THE MOST HIGH TECH WASHER AND DRYER that I will ever have in a home for the rest of my life!! (If you read the blog from a few months ago about my washer and dryer you will be privy to the reason I am soooo excited about having an awesome washer and dryer!).
Our place is "in process" right now! For the first week is was just one of my roommates and I...hello huge rent check!! We got the utilities turned on...hmmm they make so much money when people move in...they didn't even have to come out to turn them on, but they did charge us $75! I bought a tv stand at a thrift store that barely fit into my civic...but honestly I have hauled so much stuff in it the last two weeks you would think it was a truck! I got my sofa and chair (which I got from a friend...thank you sooo much!!) however one of the cushions flew off on the way back to the condo so if you look closely (you don't have to look that closely!) you can see where it got run over by a car! At least my sofa has a story...does yours??? We also got a supercheap kitchen table from Walmart that w
e had to put together...yeah that only took us 3 hours! We should have known it would not have been easy...there were two returned tables at Walmart from customers who "didn't think the finished product looked like the picture on the box" and the guy at the store kept asking us if we really wanted to buy this table. The table still isn't completely put together...suppossedly you are suppossed to be able to attach the seat cushions to the chair frames and the table top to the table frame with just the screws and a manuel screwdriver...I don't think so!! I spent 45 minutes trying to put one stupid seat cushion on a frame and it is only slightly attached. And trying to put the table top on...yeah right I am not strong enough to make a hole in 1/2 inch of solid "fake" wood! Hmmm...going need to find someone with some powertools! (Sooo...just remember not to sit down too hard on our chairs or try and lift the kitchen table by the table top...because it all just might fall apart!). Other than that we are slowly decorating. My third roommate moved in on Tuesday and the fourth roommate should be moving in next weekend. So hopefully, we will be settled in a week or so!I started back at the Office of World Missions at APU this week for Graduate Assistant training and next week our entire office is going on a retreat from Monday through Wednesday. I start school the week after that! Ahhhh summer is over!
The cool, scary, and exciting part is that I will be done with school in 9 months and by next summer I have no idea where I will be! So here's to an amazing school year where I get to learn, work hard, do missions, work with students, live with friends, and see where God is going to take me for the next part of my future!
