my life//in medias res*

Baby, it’s cooooold outsiiide

November 23rd, 2005 at 12:04 am by sillyjoe (Adventures in Randomosity, Life and Introspection)

The weather is starting to change, Thanksgiving is in two days, and there’s only one YOKE club left in the fall semester.

This can only mean one thing. Winter is upon us. Christmas is coming. And I’m freakin’ out. This year has gone by so incredibly fast….it’s unbelievable, really. Today, on the way to YOKE, one of my friends was talking about getting engaged to her boyfriend in the future…another couple of my friends are talking about marriage. This is freakin’ me out as well. I feel so young, naive, and inexperienced around these people who are almost ready to make such a huge commitment. I haven’t even had a girlfriend since freshman year…of high school. Life is weird.

Christmas break is coming soon for the Carson-Newman kids…which means I have a month of nothing but work church and sleep in store. Hopefully I’ll get to hang with Cheney and Sam some over the break…maybe even Andy if he’s lucky. I miss Sam. We used to watch movies every day. I haven’t seen him since early September.

It’s strange to think of how much my life has changed in the past year. If a year ago tonight you told me that a year later I would a) no longer be at Buffalo Baptist Church, b) no longer be at Carson-Newman College, and c) be working a full-time job serving tables…I would’ve told you you were KUH-raaazy. But hey…life’s weird.

I read Rob Bell’s book Velvet Elvis recently. Cheney, Kev and I are talking about doing a study on it, Blue Like Jazz, and The Ragamuffin Gospel next semester. We’ll each lead the study for a month, on one book. I’ll do VE, Cheney will do BLJ, and Kev will do TRG….I’m really excited about this. I can’t wait to read through these three amazing books (I’ve read all three before…but this in depth discussion is gonna rule) with two of my closest friends, and two of the guys who I can talk to anything about. I really recommend Velvet Elvis to anyone reading this right now. It will really change up the way you think about a lot of things. Rob Bell is one bad mamma jamma.

Today at YOKE we had Turkey Club (no, not the sandwich). We did this thing where we all wore paper plates with strings tied to them around our necks. With the paper plates put to our backs, we all walked around and wrote on each other’s plates the reasons we were thankful for each other. Here are some of the things I got…

“Thanks for being my friend”
“you are so awesome”
“funny and weird (but in a good way)”
“so cool”
“you make YOKE fun and you sing good”
“thanks for taking us to YOKE camp”
“your my hero”

I love those kids. White Pine Middle by far has the best YOKE club in the history of all mankind. And I feel BEYOND privileged to get to work with the YOKE folk I get to work with. Cheney, Kev, Rach, Ashley, Sarah, and Annie…you are all rock stars…and I want to take your picture, or something.

Anyway, this has been a strangely broad, A.D.D. post…but that’s life. Life’s weird. It all comes back to that, I guess.

Listen to Mae. They’re good.