I first want to talk about the Junior Exploration. The Junior Exploration was an event held at Spring Arbor University which is located in Spring Arbor; about 30 minutes away from Jackson.
When i arrived, it was still pouring out, and we went into the student center which i learned to be one of my favorite places at SAU. It's where so many things are held. A room dedicated strictly to ping-pong, dining commons, the lounge room with a huge screen that's commonly used for karaoke nights, and to watch sports events, the "book store" which had nothing relevant to books, and ever a sort of little food market. It was SO cool inside!
When we got there, we did icebreaker games and played a huge version of family feud then we hung out with each other After a few hours, we met our room hosts. Mine were Courtney and Danielle, both freshman. Courtney was majoring in social work, and Danielle was majoring in art and minoring in youth ministry. They talked about how their first year was going, and then they asked us what we wanted to do, Jenny the girl i was paired with and i weren't too sure what we wanted to do, so we took a tour of the dorm building we were in which is Muffit. Not the nicest dorm for girls, it's actually the oldest but it had a lot of character. After that we played Apples to Apples and watched a movie. Then around midnight we walked to the McDonalds across the street and walked through the drive through to get icees. From my experience at Burger King, when people come through the drive thru not in a car, which HAS happened, we can't give them business But this McDonalds does, especially for the students. It was soooo much fun, even though it was still pouring and we were soaking wet.
After that, we got back to the dorms and just hung around and eventually fell asleep. We were up around 7:20 to go to the dining commons to get breakfast, and then we had free time which Danielle, Jenny and i just listened to music in the dorm and played Monopoly Deal. Then, after about an hour, we went to an auditorium to hear from the President, Vice President and some Admissions Counselors. Some of the things they brought up, were really helpful. Spring Arbor has a 90% placement plan for graduates which i believe is AWESOME. Two of my personal favorite parts about Spring Arbor, is first off Core. As freshman, you get a group of 15 other students, one professor and an older student. It reminds me of Link Crew. With this Core group, you are guaranteed 15 friends walking onto campus. During your first semester, you and your core group go on a camping trip. The first night, you are in cabins and just have fun, and then the second night, you're brought to the middle of the woods and have to "survive" with only a few tarps, rope, and potatoes. Then there's the famous catch a chicken, chop it's head off, pluck it, cook it and eat it. The core group is a support system for SAU, and that you can turn to if you need anything. The second thing that i find interesting is during the second semester of your senior year, it's required that you go on a mission trip for a minimum of 3 weeks. Those three weeks, you can choose to go various places around the world.
After hearing from the president, we went to chapel That's another thing i love about SAU- chapel It's required two times a week, but it was one of the best church services i've ever been too. Most know, that last summer i went to South Dakota and Colorado with my youth group. While there, i attended Desperation- where i first met Kari Jobe, where i admitted to my depression, and where i finally accepted the death of my dad. I still to this day, will say that Desperation 2012 was among one of THE most amazing things i've ever done. The hardest part about Desperation was leaving. I learned while there, that it was SO easy to connect with God. The hard part was leaving, because i wasn't worshiping for 3 hours straight daily, i wasn't hearing amazing messages from God. I'm not sure if this makes much sense, but while there it was easy to have a relationship because of the circumstance. When i got home, life went on. I lost the feeling. While at chapel at Spring Arbor, i felt like i was back at Desperation. It was a really good feeling, and imagine being able to go there at least two times a week. It would be like a never ending Desperation which would be AMAZING. The thing that i found most interesting about chapel at Spring Arbor, was that there was no same pastor pretty much. Each service, was someone knew who traveled to talk to us. It reminded me of my home church because it wasn't one of those churches that you would get the death glare if you weren't dressed up... it was like my church... the dress code is that you wear clothes. Meaning that you wore what ever you wanted too to church. Which i personally think is nice. A lot of kids, like my best friend Sarah, HATE dressing up, and that's one of the things keeping her back from church. She likes my church because she doesn't have to get all glammed up. The music was awesome and the speaker was too. I can definitely see myself there(:
After chapel, we went to class. The class i took, was a Spanish Literature class. At first i was very intimidated because we were just walking into a random class. But it wasn't long before i felt comfortable and felt right at place. They were talking about "leyendas" which i learned this semester was a legend. The legend was about a pregnant women who was giving birth to twins in the early times, and the village people kept giving her herbs to take care of the pain (like that would work lol) and in the end she gave birth and dedicated her life over to God and became some sort of nun. It was just really fun, and one of my dorm hosts best friend Abby was in there so i at least knew her.
After Spanish class, i went for a meeting with the professor in education. He first started his speech by stating that he was the oldest teacher at Spring Arbor but that he wasn't out of time yet. It was really funny, and i enjoyed hearing about his experiences a lot. He told us all about the curriculum there and told us about how most schools don't have an education major, instead they have an education certification. But SAU offers a major in education. There education program is very similar to the teacher cadet class i take right now. Your first semester you take EDU101 which puts you in the school immediately to get a feel for teaching to assure that it's the right thing for you before you decide to spend money. Then he talked about J term, the 3 week break between semesters. There's an 'education credit' you can receive during that time. But not on campus. You travel with other students down to Florida. (Florida in the middle of January instead Michigan, yup already there..) While there, you visit two different locations. Going to several different schools in that area. There was a student who tagged along with him and gave us a few examples. She just went this past January and said they went to the best school districts in that county, the worst. The poorest populated area, and richest. Blind, deaf and special education schools, and different schools with high levels of different cultures. It just sounds cool all around.
My time there was amazing, and i;m really looking forward to learning more about the school.
After that, i went to my grandparents just for a quick visit. It wasn't the best time I've ever been there but it was nice to spend time with them.
Then i came home, back to school and daily business.
It's Sunday night, but i wanted to write about yesterday also. Yesterday was one year since my dad's passed away. I woke up early and excited but it didn't take long before i sat on my bed tearing up. Then i sucked it up and just got too busy getting ready. It was an awesome day. Sarah and i went out to the NB pier really early and one of the men that was also there recognized me, and asked about my dad. When he asked, Sarah came up behind me and said it for me, which made it a lot easier. We were there for a while and then Andre came. We were there for hours and ended up going two other places. We were out there for 12 hours. It was AWESOME.
Then today, i went to church early for our "serve our world day". Something i noticed a lot today, was that our spirits were really low due to recent news. Ian and i were watching the kids while all the adults in our church went out and served at various places. When that was all done, we met at the NB park and had a picnic that the community was invited too. We got rained out early so i ended up going to Sarah's house and watched princess movies in her basement for hours lol. Then, because today's my twin cousins 38th birthday, we went to a Japanese restaurant. It was one of those cool ones where your table has the grill in the middle of it and stuff like that. The best part was the sushi there was AMAZING. Second best sushi I've ever had, Maryland was where the best stuffs at!
This weekend has been amazing, and I'm really glad for that(:
I'm not looking forward too much to the fact that i have to work again in almost a week starting tomorrow, but it'll be alright(:
Just a bunch of random pictures from the Boat Regatta!
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