Theme song: Schools out foooorrrrEVER! …. maybe

Summertime brings a relaxing glow about everyone. Whether it is from the sun, less academic stress, being around friends and family or carefree summer jobs, summer brings a smile to my face. For the past 17 years of my life summer was interrupted by school in the fall. This year I must make my own plans for the fall. So this summer is a little different then most! I have to do some work!

Knowing that I do not have set plans of going back to school in the fall is a scary, yet thrilling! I like to have a plan, a schedule: stability. However, I’m taking a ride on the risky train. With no plans made; my schedule is open for opportunities to occur! Coming upon opportunity doesn’t just happen unfortunately. Research, studying, paper writing, applying, calling are just a few things I need to do to make opportunities possible. It can be hard work, but if I think of it as molding my future just the way I want it, it can be fun! Knowing that I can be ANYWHERE in the fall is sooo exciting.    

So how am I spending my summer?

- Studying the GRE (test date June 29^th!)

            It is a general test to get into graduate school. Most programs require it (I haven’t found one that hasn’t). Students going to medical school take the MCAT or law students taking the LSAT. So students going into Business, Psychology, other sciences, etc require the GRE. And that’s that!

- Job search

              Aka: Soul Searching. What do I want to do?? I’m not thinking as a lifetime career because I plan on going to grad school in a year or so. However, I want a job that will give me career and life learning experience.

- Helping with odds and ends at home

                My favorites: Mowing lawn, cooking/baking and babysitting my nephews J

- Getting “Insane” with my friends and Sean T

              Take a glimpse at our daily routine! FYI: Insanity is “the toughest workouts on DVD!”  http://youtu.be/Uuf3pyfz9zo

- Visiting friends and family!

             Now this is what I call summer! Going to the beach (lakeside), concerts, road trips, and spontaneous activities that happen to pop up for a study break!

Stress and anxiety will set in by August if my schedule is still blank. So I better get get to studying or soul searching so I too can be productive and contributing to society in the fall!

Summertime = Mountains

For me, the summer is about to begin for real.  Until this point, I have been living at home and bound by few responsibilities, but this afternoon I drove four hours up to my summer home-away-from-home: Bonclarken.

Prior to going to Erskine, I had never heard of this wonderful little place up in the mountains.  Prior to working here, I had only visited twice, for the winter retreat that Erskine has organized for the past few years in January.  However, after working and living here all last summer, I have come to love Bonclarken dearly.

I work in the office up here, but there is a whole group of us – mostly college students – who stay every year for the summer and work.  There is a recreation staff (Rec), guest services, and some food service workers, and we all live in two little buildings.  Part of the great experience is living with the people you work with; this means that you really get to know them.  Granted, most of the student workers go to or graduated from Erskine, so we all kind of know each other to begin with, but then you just get to know them in a whole new way.

Sunset on the lake at Bonclarken last summer, after spending the afternoon reading... ah, summer.

Because we have no commute time, most meals are provided, and we all live together, we do a lot of things with each other outside of work, as well.  There are always lots of movies, excursions, activities around Bonclarken, and I think the guys have even set up a video game room in their building this year!  Plus, because we are in the mountains I love to spend time outside, going for walks, hiking, reading on the lake, or even just going downtown and poking around the little shops – it is definitely a great place to spend the summer!

The work is good, the location is beautiful, the people are so nice, there is lots of fun to be had, and it is a community of Christians. . . the summer is starting for real tomorrow when I go in for my first day of work, and I am looking forward to another rewarding few months, making memories and enjoying it all.

The End of the Year…and Summer Begins

Wow. I can hardly believe that my sophomore year of college is over. This year has been one full of learning, growth, and an abundance of blessings. And now, strangely enough, I’m delighted to be at home. I say “strangely enough” because, although I dearly love my home and family in Columbia, I so enjoyed the experience of living at Erskine (my “second home”) this year that I rarely wanted to leave, even for a weekend. There were always fun events to attend, dear friendships to cultivate, and—of course, unfailingly—there was intellectually stimulating and challenging homework to complete. And I was generally loath to leave all of that behind in order to spend four hours driving…even if the driving allowed me to visit my family for the weekend.

I say all of that as a caveat to avoid giving the impression that I don’t absolutely love Erskine–because I do. Consequently, I could not possibly have anticipated, during the school year, how refreshing and wonderful this summer season would be. What am I loving about summer thus far? Spending with my amazing family and friends here in Columbia, relishing my mother’s incredible cuisine, fitting back into rhythm of family life, and being surrounded by books, to name a few. (Perhaps that last comment about books doesn’t make much sense, considering that I just spent eight months at an academic institution…but you see, as much as I appreciated the material I read for classes this year, there’s nothing like wandering through a house full of books of every sort, ranging from child-friendly fiction to medical dictionaries and rich works of theology. A library, of course, is a close approximation, but there’s nothing like a house full of books hand-picked by those clos
est to you.)

I’m also enjoying—and, in the interest of full disclosure, being quite challenged by—the new job I began this Monday at a nearby law firm, Sweeney, Wingate, & Barrow. I’m both excited about my job as a “runner” (which includes everything from making coffee to filing stacks of case documents) and rather overwhelmed. I’m excited because I love the atmosphere there and am thankful to be a part of such a welcoming, close-knit community (an apropos setting after spending a year at a school like Erskine!). At the same time, I’m coming to realize that diving into the working world after years of doing little aside from either studying or mission work (during the summer) is, well, tough.

I give you full liberty to laugh and call me a wimp for admitting this, but um, even a seven-hour work day leaves me exhausted. Yep. Of course, most new things are difficult at first, and any work becomes easier over time. Even so, working regularly causes me to realize with renewed fervor that, while I’m still a student, I don’t want to take for granted the precious freedom I have to spend my time largely as I choose! My tendency during the school year is to think I’m terribly busy…which is often true, but ultimately, only to the extent to which I allow myself to be busy. In other words, although managing one’s time as a student may be challenging at times, as I taste “real life” a bit, I’m realizing how extraordinary is the freedom one has as a student to spend time reading and exploring intellectually—a freedom which will become increasingly elusive after graduation. Which is why I’m hoping to become a professor and stay in school forever…Kidding. Wel
l, only a little. At any rate, the summer has begun well and will, I trust, be a refreshing time of growth and fellowship before I head off to Spain in the fall. Until then, adios mis amigos!