On another note, the semester has started and this has brought me to think about life (in particular the past four years) a lot lately. So many things have happened in such a short amount of time at college. This time just a few years ago I was going to pledge things for Gamma Phi, hanging out with a people in the dorms all of the time, playing ultimate frisbee until 1am with Mary Rachel, our now husbands and others, having 3am dance parties with my rommate Kate, going to my first RUF ever. Now here we are, graduating next year, with no clear "next step" in life like there always has been. That is scary. I remember sending Mitchell off to college at OU five years ago and crying as I left the OU dorms helping him move in and went back to Flower Mound, haha! It is so cool to look over the years and see how God has provided for us relationally, spiritually, etc. I have especially been thinking about this through my friendships. God has blessed me with some wonderful friends. Some of them have moved on and graduated (speaking of Elyse, I am mad at her for this in particular! ). It is weird to think about how this will happen so soon. I can't imagine not living within a couple of miles of all my friends. Although it will be exciting to move to the next stage of life, I have to say that I am glad I am still a college student. I realized this summer that college students really aren't as busy as they think they are, even though I admit I have had semesters where I thought I did not have a spare second of free time. And if they are, it is usually filled with doing things they more or less CHOOSE to do. My Dad always told me when I worried about college loans and if it is worth it etc. that college is not about the classes and actual degree as much as it is about the life lessons, experiences, and people you spend the four years with. That is so true!
Also, RUF started last night. I kind of always knew I was going to be involved in RUF becuase I grew up in a church that was connected to the ministry. However, I cannot begin to explain in words what RUF has meant to Mitchell and I throughout college. It is so good to sing hymns and songs with rich meaning. It is refreshing to hear the gospel and to hear things that are real and true and maybe sometimes hard to hear. I think that in ten years when I look back on my four years in college, I will mostly think about RUF and how this ministry has impacted me. I feel that a lot of Christians sugar coat things these days because they want to be "cool" and make you feel good. However, I personally think it is more important to hear Scripture and teaching that it sometimes uncomfortable and hard to hear becuase it points us to Christ and to the gospel. Doug in particular, the campus minister for RUF, has impacted our lives in this way. He also did our marriage counseling-which we are very thankful for! ALSO, we sang "In Christ Alone", which is my favorite hymn. :)
On a completely different note, we have really enjoyed cooking lately. I have to admit that although I always said I wanted to cook, I worked mostly nights last year and rarely made things that took longer than 5 minutes to prepare, partly because I didn't have time or the resources. This year Mitchell and I only cook at home and it has been SO fun, not to mention saves a lot of money. One day this week we made broccoli cheese soup. Now, we had been talking about making broccoli cheese soup for a long time and about finding a recipe for it. We were so excited to find one and I thought about it all day as it simmered for 10 hours in the crock pot. Unfortunatley, it was so awful that now when I think about broccoli cheese soup, it makes me a little nauseated, which is a shame. I guess every recipe is not going to turn out tasty, but it was dissapointing. Plus our apartments seems to not be able to get rid of the smell. We are making roast tonight for dinner though which is a recipe from Mitchell's Mom that we LOVE! Hopefully our apartment will smell like roast now. mmmm. We have also been baking different things like muffins for breakfast and different kinds of cookies. It is fun that we both like to cook-actually I think Mitchell likes it a little bit more than me and is better at it!
Mitchell will probably start interviewing for jobs here in a month or so. We are trying to be open to whatever God's plan is for us, but I really hope we end up in Dallas. I am thinking about applying for Teach for America (2 year program teaching at an inner city school while getting your master's degree), but there are also a lot of things I am interested in pursuing. I think I would LOVE to get my master's in Speech Pathology and work at a hospital, but it depends on Mitchell's job situatoin and if I need to work for a few years first, etc. Of course I still want to pursue my passion for people with special needs-whether that is through a teaching program like Teach for America, working for a community program or who knows.
My classes are actually really interesting this semester. I am taking a class about Health Communication which I love and I am also taking a class called "Communication in Close Relationships" which is very interesting! Mitchell has some really hard classes as usual and is doing his capstone which consists of doing phsyics and engineering research with a professor for the year. He is working all 5am shifts at Starbucks which he likes becuase it means he has free evenings. I am working nights and weekends but not everyday like I did a lot of last year, so I am thankful for that! I am really working on saying no to too many commitments this year so that I can have time to spend with my friends and with Mitchell instead of attending meetings every night. Also, we have finally finished figuring out all this paying for school, books etc. thing! I just 5 minutes ago paid my $1400 for health insurance (gross) and now we are done for the semester. phew!
Anyways-that is all for now. Adios!
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