Well I’ve decided that since I am playing my first game of softball tomorrow night that the summer can officially start. I also think that it is high time I put some meaningful thoughts on this Xanga; so at the risk of sounding full of existential goosh (sorry Peter) I will now dispense my thoughts on the 06-07 school year. I was trying to think of what to talk about in this post while at work today and I decided that I will not do several things. I will not make a trivial list of things I learned, or tried to learn, because the things that I really learned which were worth learning would take thousands of words to describe. I can’t list the names of people that I loved this year because I inevitably leave someone out and then I would feel bad even though they would probably never read this. And I won’t try to sum up the whole year in some terrible axiom like ‘the harder you work during the day the better the shower is at the end of it’ (I just made that up, aren’t you proud of me…) So instead I decided to say whatever came into my head about the year and here it is… The year began last fall with me arriving at the Worldview Team retreat and ended with watching the rain fall while sitting on the about-to-fall-apart bench outside of Huston dorm. I can’t think for a better place for it to have begun or concluded. You know, I hear people say all the time that they find it difficult to follow God when they are suffering but for me it is quite the opposite. I talk to God all the time when I am down or mad or upset, but as soon as things are fine it’s like I forget that all things come from God’s hand. How silly of me. So allow me to interrupt my thoughts on the year and say the God has been so good to me recently and he deserves to be praised for it. I would shout it from a mountain if I had one; but I don’t, alls (it’s a word okay…) I have is a warehouse. Anyway back to the summery, maybe I never stopped… So this year I learned how to be a kid again. I think that the last few years I have taken myself way too seriously. Now I don’t mean that I am a kid again in an immature way, like ‘let’s play with chalk because other people will see us and think we look cute,’ but it’s more like – running because you want to, hiding behind bushes because it’s the best place to hide, and loving people because they are worth being loved not because you expect them to do anything for you. I was reading the book on pirates Drew got me for Christmas (indecently I love studying pirates) and I realized that I haven’t wanted to be a pirate in a long time. But all that is being amended. I don’t think that it is a coincidence that my junior year which was so full of blessing and great times coincided with the time I consciously began to make prayer a significant part of my life again. Some things happened this last year and especially this last semester that caused me to seek Jesus’ nearness like I never have before and I know that through everything He guides me. Again, I don’t say that because I was led out of some terrible situation but rather because my life has been so full of blessing. Well that’s probably enough for now you can ask me about the rest later but let me end by doing one thing I said I wasn’t going to… Maxim for the day: If an old man named Bud offers you and your fellow adventurer marshmallows made over the fire he built in his driveway, you should always say yes. Keep it real hotstuff | 
