Wed, March 4th

Updates...two and a half weeks until witer quarter is over. I am excited to get a break but ext quarter will have pretty similar classes. I am planning on taking the last class in the physics serries as well as the second part of economics. Hopefully I can get into an engineering class, specifically Enginerring Statics. Classes are going well although I find that my Accounting class is very uninteresting and so it is difficult to do the work required for the class.

We (Bryce Mitchell, Dan Hancock and myself) went up skiing last Thursday at Mt. Baker and they had just had two feet of fresh snow. It was pretty amazing and it was once again sunny and blue skies.

Our Core is going well and yesterday we had a great time starting a study on the book of Galatians. Many of the guys are really getting interested and more involved and friendships are developing into this great support group.

Myself and 6 other people have been in the process of starting a full time prayer team ministries for CCF and last week was our first go at it. It started out really well and now each week we have a prayer team at CCF for after the service. We have prayed for quite a few people and it has been really great to see the positive effects its had on them.

That's about it from up here. Over spring break my tentative plan is to drive down to Redding California and spend a couple days with some friends there and then drive the rest of the way down to San Diego and spend a few days seeing people down there. Then, I will get in the car and drive back up to school for another great quarter at Western. A spring quarter at that so the skies will be blue and the weather warm. :)

First LAN Party

So this last Saturday we had our first official Halo 3 Party. There is a building on campus that has two very large lecture halls in it and in each lecture hall there are two projectors. So last Saturday we went over and connected two x-boxes to the the projectors and played Halo 3 late into the night. It was pretty sweet having those giant screens over your head and music blasting out of surround sound speakers and having a bunch of guys laughing and yelling at each other. It was a blast.

Whistler-Blackcomb

Whistler was beautiful! The sky was blue both days and the rugged beauty of the mountains was awe inspiring. I have seen mountains before and I have skied in beautiful places but never have I been in a place like this. We were in the mountains, surrounded by cliffs and gorges. The rocky peaks rose up right around us and the breathtaking beauty of it is indescribable and cannot be captured on film. Much of Whistler and Blackcomb mountain ski areas is above the tree line. There are these giant open expanses of snow and rock where you can see for miles upon miles. We skied the Blackcomb glacier, a 6.5 mile run, 2 of which were on the glacier itself, skiing down through the giant peaks on both sides. It was so glorious. I don't have words to describe it and the photos pale in comparison to the panoramic landscape that surrounded us.

Pictures are uploaded to my flickr account. See side bar for photo stream. Click it to link you to the page and click on the Whistler-Blackcomb set to see all the photos.

Not a lot to report. Big tests last week and quite busy. This next weekend, Presidents day weekend, I am going up to Whistler-Blackcomb in Canada to go skiing with a friend. I will have photos up from that next week sometime.

Spent last weekend down in Everett cleaning up the upstairs apartments at Colby for new tenants with mom. It was very nice to be able to spend some time with her.

That's all for now.

Jordan in Japan

So Jordan is in Japan for the next three months and he has a blog about it. It is really funny and has a lot of cool things about what is happening there. You should definetly check it out. Just follow the link on the right side of this page, or click on this:
http://teslabroadjapan.blogspot.com/

The last two weeks and future plans (condensed)

Last weekend was CCF winter camp and it was great. I was going nonstop but the mixture of fun activities, friends and all the sessions on biblical matters made it seem like to short a time. We played Tackle Ultimate Frisbee, ate meals, worshiped and learned. It was wonderful. I cant go into details on everything that happened or the different things I learned but there were some very powerful words that refocused and encouraged me in some very specific ways.

These last two weeks have been very busy and so I am now getting around to updating this blog. Sorry for the delay.

My midterms were this last week and then went very well but I still have a Physics midterm This coming Friday. Please pray for me. I am having difficulty comprehending the material and so prayer for comprehension and time to study would be most helpful. Also, I tend to get distracted more easily when trying to do homework.

Tonight was so fun. After last year at the Seattle Folk Life Festival I looked up the folk dancing group that met up in Bellingham. I never got around to going but then tonight I went. It was so much fun. I brought a friend from school along, Chris Fredly, who has never done contra dancing before and he really enjoyed it which made me enjoy it all the more. They had a ton of people, over 75, and there was quite an age range. It brought back memories of dancing back at home. I really had a great time. The next time I go, Chris and I are going to try and get more people to go with us. It will be sweet!

That is the quick update from up here. There are some big things happening and some large choices I am having to make.
For example, I have applied to be a Resident Advisor (RA) next year in the dorms. Those are the people who help to build community, plan events, enforce dorm policy, mediate roommate problems and help to keep the dorms running smoothly. It is a large time commitment, more so than being a CoreFa but I think the experience will be interesting and I will be able to bring a christian perspective as a RA. The downside is, less time to do other things and I would not be a Core leader. Also, would have lots of training and classes to attend and other stuff. What are your thoughts on this?
There are also a lot of activities that our core and other cores are doing in the next few weeks. Multi-Core studies, valentines day dinners with girls and guys cores, movie nights, and so on.

I am captain of an intramural dodge ball team and that is quite fun. There are 8 guys and we basically try to through he ball as hard as we can and smash the other team before they do it to us.
On Valentines day weekend, (Feb 13-15) myself and 3 other guys are driving up to Whistler-Blackcomb) Ski resort and going skiing for two days. We will drive up on Friday night, stay in a hostel and go skiing all of Saturday and Sunday then Drive back Sunday night. It is going to be Amazing! Whistler is the largest ski resort on the North American Continent!!!!

Anyway, that's whats happening up here. Leave comments, let me know what you think, what you want to hear more about and so on.

Sking and Friends

As I said before, I have no class on Thursday... So this past Thursday I went up skiing at Mt. Baker with my friend Bryce. It was beautiful. The weather was warm enough for just an outer jacket and they already have over 100 inches of snow up there.

Another fun bit of stuff that happened this weekend, Jordan and Peter came up to work but spent Saturday and Sunday with me before starting. We went out to eat, went on a walk by the waterfront and did some biking. Saturday night we played in a pool tournament and then went out with some friends to burn a Christmas tree. :) Jordan got carried away with the lighter and a can of axe deodorant, lighting people on fire and so on. It was fun. On Sunday we played soccer with some guys and hung out and I took them on the rope swing, previously mentioned on this site. It was a blast and now I have to crack down and do some school work.

January 11th, First Week of 2009

First week is over and it went very smoothly. It rained nonstop everyday for the last week. There has been flooding at two of the dorms in south campus and many bus routes were closed down due to road closers. They had to evacuated part of Bellingham as the water began flooding the entire area. Other than all the rain classes went well. I got into all my classes without a problem except of course the Machining Metals class which I have been unable to get into for 3 quarters now. Its okay though because it now gives my schedule a decided advantage. I have no classes on Thursday. :) What this means is that I can go up skiing on Thursdays without missing class!

I am taking Physics w/ Calculus 2, Microeconomics and Financial Accounting. The teachers are all very good and the classes seem interesting so far.

Core has not started up yet but we have planned out studies and started setting up 1-on-1 for this quarter. I have about 6 hour long 1-on-1s each week along with the planning and bible studies.

Lets see, what else is new... I am the captain of an Intramural Dodge ball Team. 8 on 8 men's dodge ball, should be sweet! I am going to start giving plasma. They have a Bio Life facility in Bellingham and what they do is collect plasma from people for medical research. They pay you for your time I can sit there and do my studies for an hour and a half while they get the plasma and get paid for it. Pretty cool.

My roommate, Will is great. We get along quite well and have had some really good talks so far. Here are some pictures of our room. It doesn't do it justice but it kind of gives you an idea.