13 September 2008

College, Ultimate, Cornerstone, Rain

College, in a word, is amazing. College, in general, is going well.
The classes are good, the workload is manageable, and the people... let's just say that I don't quite feel like I've found my niche yet. But it's only been three weeks, so I guess I shouldn't complain. The right people will find happen upon me and the rest will be history, I'm sure. I just have to remain open-minded.
And I have been very open-minded so far. I'm getting myself involved in all sorts of things: jazz band, concert band, Ultimate Frisbee. I have to say that I really like Ultimate. After four years of just playing, I'm now learning structure, and perfecting my throwing skills. The only sad thing is that I can make just one practice a week right now because of my band practices. It makes it a little hard because I feel like I have to catch up and other girls are getting way ahead of me, but I try not to think about that.
Yesterday I went to Cornerstone Ministries with a group from campus. Cornerstone is a homeless shelter run by JPUSA (an awesome community) that houses full families (i.e. it doesn't separate the fathers from their family like many other shelters do) and our job is to go there and play with the kids during supper so that the parents get a little break. At first I was pretty shy, and I have to say that I'm pretty bad when it comes to being shy in new situations - I try not to be, but my whole voice and outgoing-ness just disappears. So anyways, eventually I warmed up, and afterwards Hajong told me that I seem to have a natural "knack" for talking to children and communicating with them and whatnot. This was rather surprising to me, because I didn't feel like I was doing the greatest job of that, but it was an interesting comment and I took it to heart for pondering.
My final topic today is the rain. Here in Chicago it rains so much and so persistently that I actually had to find and buy a raincoat. I got a pretty sweet one by Ralph Lauren for $7 at the Village Discount Store nearby. And I've put it to use, especially today. This morning at 7:30 I looked outside and noticed that the river was up again. This morning at 8:30 I went outside and saw that not only had the river risen since 7:30, it had flooded, and even more-so than it had last Thursday night. (For those who don't know, on Thursday the river spilled over into the bike path and my roommate and I had the joy of witnessing a WHOLE TREE go floating down the river.) The entire bike path is pretty much disappeared right now, and I've heard rumor that the rain is going to just get worse, and even that there will be thunder and lightning today! Needless to say, I'll be confined to the indoors today, but I like rain, so I guess I don't mind too much. :)
~monkey