Reflections on the Past 4-5 Years of My Life

Senior Year Part 1 (2008-2009)

This entry has more of a show and tell feel to it. The first part of this story has to do with my room. Here are some pics so you can get an idea of what I was living in. I actually signed up for this room to live by myself. I signed up for it without even looking at it. I didn't know the size until I got there on move in day.

A view from the door... You can see how the huge tv dwarfs everything in my room.

The original room configuration. I could not fully rotate that desk chair 360 degrees. There wasn't enough room.

The new room configuration, where I could fully rotate my desk chair.

Okay, I just put this on here to make me look smarter... hopefully it worked...

A surround sound speaker. A man must have his sound system.

My desk. I like to call it organized confusion. It might look messy, but I usually don't lose anything. I promise.

This was my room. It was quite small, but I eventually learned to live with it. I had a few freshmen come by the first night and comment on how small the room was. One even called it a "jail cell". That's what I get for not shopping around first right? The very first night I was there, some of the previously mentioned freshmen that came into my room smelled the blood right away, figuratively speaking. Within five minutes of talking to me, they discovered that I was over 21 (and thus eligible) and asked me to buy them some alcohol at the store. I never did know how serious they were, but obviously I told them I wouldn't do that. I imagine they were serious.

This floor I lived on was the craziest floor I was ever a part of. I guess it was never boring either, like it or not. I lived with a bunch of freshmen. I was about as old as my RA or perhaps even older, I never did figure that one out. There were fights, loud noises at night, blood drops randomly in the hallway, kids returning from the parties drunk, a snowball fight in the hallway, and real fights among other random stuff. Never have I ever been a part of a crazier group of guys.

In December of this year, we had the 2nd World Missions Summit, so obviously I was there. It was a Chi Alpha Nationwide Conference that they put together bringing in missionaries from around the world, as well as students from all around the country. This was a pretty crazy conference. I got to hear from people who are on the front lines of ministry on other college campuses or in other countries. I got to see some of my friends that I had met the year before at SALT again, so that was fun. I also met some new people like the campus pastor at University of Wyoming (totally random...). Our Chi Alpha group had recently sent them some money for their Chi Alpha house, I believe, so maybe it wasn't so random... It was here at this conference that I signed the Give a Year, Pray About a Lifetime card along with a few hundred of my closest friends. I didn't give too much thought about it then, but this decision would turn out to affect my life in a great way.

Since the conference was in Cincinnati, I walked to Kentucky with a group of my friends in the middle of the night which was just as much fun as the year before at SALT. And since it wasn't as cold this time, we didn't freeze.

This was the year I was supposed to apply to my clinical classes for Medical Technology. I didn't feel that great about my chances because my grades weren't spectacular, and one of the other larger portions is the interview and I definitely didn't have confidence in that either. I decided I would try anyway and you never really know what's going to happen (only God knows). I pretty much knew I wasn't going to get in, but yet it still made me very upset to read the rejection letter because no one likes rejection. It was hard to take because this is what I was planning my life for. I changed my major with the expectation that I would be moving on from college life to these clinical classes. God had other plans for me (which will be addressed in the next entry of this series).

The next big event of the year was the spring break trip to Carbondale, IL to hang out with a more veteran/larger Chi Alpha group. Even though they have a smaller campus than Purdue, they had a much larger group than we did at the time. We basically did everything that their Chi Alpha group normally does along with them. We also did some special outreaching stuff like surveys and God table. We also watched this seminar from Bill Gothard. There was so much truth and teaching presented in those videos that I was exploding by the second day. I struggled with the sheer volume of truth he presents. One day we had a planned fun day. We went to this park to hang out. We were supposed to play ultimate frisbee, but the frisbee was left at the house we were staying at. So we decided to play ultimate water bottle. Same rules as ultimate frisbee, except that the frisbee is replaced with a full water bottle as seen below...

While we were playing, I got hit in the face with the water bottle, which promptly ended the game. I was hit in my mouth and was slightly dazed for a few minutes afterward...Oh what fun!

During the week before Easter, we did some special outreaches for the first time on campus. We had some extra surveys and we also read the Bible out loud to people walking by. I occupied the very first time slot with my friend Levi at 11 am Monday morning. I was freezing cold and I forgot my gloves. I had a hard time feeling my hands after that was over, but hopefully someone somewhere gained something from hearing God's word.

This was a pretty crazy year as they all seem to be. But I saved the craziest for last...