College Life: Two Down...

A little over a week ago, I finished my sophomore year at Olivet Nazarene University.

To be honest, that statement really doesn't mean much (and those of you at Olivet who aren't in a science major can back me up there). A lot of my time so far has been focused on adjusting to life away from home, finding new friends, and figuring out what to actually pursue in my four-year program there. Difficult schoolwork? Not so much. The toughest part of classes this semester has been waking up for my 8 AM class three days a week.

So, what's happened? Did I hit a sophomore slump in any areas?

Not really. This has actually been one of the best years of my life. Between a lot of excellent classes, making some new friends, and finding romance, it's been really incredible. I have no complaints and very few regrets going into the summer. Here's some notes about stuff going on:

  • My grades ended up pretty good, even in the classes I hated. The best thing about this semester academically was that my biggest challenges in coursework happened to be in a class that I was super passionate about (shout out to Prof. Teresa Garner for that one). I had to learn how to manage my time better with traveling, schoolwork, a job, and a girlfriend, but that was a really good exercise for my sense of discipline. 
  • Speaking of a girlfriend, Felicia and I are doing really really well, but being apart from her is going to be no piece of cake. I'm not going to get into a lot here (because I know I can go on and on and I don't want to bore you), but going from seeing her every day to being able to just talk and text while actually seeing her a lot less is a big shift. 
  • Lifesong is officially over for good. The team is not continuing into next year, as most of us are going onto full-time ministry teams from Olivet. I personally am not going to travel next year, and I'm so happy about that. I cannot wait to find a good church home for the next couple years and park myself there, as I've really been missing the consistency of being part of a single local church. Seeing how the church can look different and still be the same has been amazing, but being able to stay in one place I hope will be very beneficial. 
  • As far as the summer is concerned, I am back in Champaign and will be doing some youth ministry work at Windsor Road Christian Church. I am super excited to get to experience youth ministry on the ground, especially after coming off an incredible youth ministry course this past semester. The job thing is still a bit of a work in progress, but it's going. I'm kind of glad to have a bit of room to breathe after a somewhat stressful finish to the school year, but I'm also really excited to be busy. I hate feeling like a useless blob sitting at home all day. 
That's all for now, folks. Keep on keeping on. I should have some new reviews up for you in the next couple weeks. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Needtobreathe - H A R D L O V E (2016)

Image
It's always interesting to hear a band dramatically change their sound after years of doing pretty much the same thing. U2 did it with great success in the early 1990s with Achtung Baby  and Radiohead did while garnering massive acclaim with Kid A , as did (to a lesser extent) Hillsong UNITED a few years ago with Zion . It's a risky business transforming a style, however, because fans can react with great dismay after having fond memories of a band's past work and sound and seeing that go by the wayside for something "trendier." With that in mind, I took a listen to Needtobreathe's new album H A R D L O V E . The band is a Carolina-based Southern rock outfit much in the vein of Kings of Leon with more roots, but this new record scraps a lot of that for something much more produced and sonically polished. After having two albums in a row be very, very introspective and heavy ( The Reckoning  and Rivers in the Wasteland ), the band is ready to have a little
Read more

Unfriended: Dark Web (2018)

Image
I don’t see many horror films. Part of this is due to films like Hereditary that scare the living daylights out of me, as I, like many normal people, don’t often choose to scare myself. A larger portion of my aversion to the genre, perhaps, is the reputation mainstream horror films have these days. Especially when looking at Blumhouse-produced films, they are plain garbage. The characters make the worst possible decisions every time they have a choice presented to them simply to drive them into a terrible situation that will somehow kill them mercilessly with blood and gore everywhere, and often the scares used are cheap gimmickry and fake jump scares that do nothing but relieve the audience and bore them into their seats. Seeing Unfriended: Dark Web yielded almost that exact response from me. I was either laughing or scoffing at this movie for all of its eighty-eight minutes because of how ridiculously stupid its characters are. It made me furious yet enthused because Dark W
Read more

The Search for the Holy Grail of Music Streaming, Part 2: Google Play Music

Image
I'm back, after trying out another music streaming service. In my search, I'm continuing to find different ways that different services work with my ways of listening to music. This time, I'm going to the one made by my favorite software company: Google Play Music. If you're thinking that I have some kind of bias towards Google and their products and would choose Google Play Music just because of that, I wouldn't blame you one bit. I'm publically in support of Google and unashamedly tout Android as the best mobile operating system. So, when coming over to Google Play Music for a month-long free trial, I expected a lot. Instead, I got a little less than I wanted. Now, Google Play Music works much better for me than Spotify did, mostly because of the way it handles playback. It's very easy for me to use with my preference of listening to albums. I can search for an artist or album on either the mobile app or the web player, select an album, and place i
Read more