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My Life: October and November

Matt | December 28, 2005 at 7:21 pm | In Personal | Comments Off

This post originally started of with the following:

Happy Thanksgiving everyone (even if it is a few days late)!

I suppose that is probably not the best way to start something that is going to be posted in late December but so be it. Merry Christmas and happy new year to everyone out in internet land.

I figured that I should give y’all a brief update on how things have been going the past few months. I’ve been very busy, so I’ll focus on the “important” events. I’ve also put together a photo gallery to accompany this blog entry. You can find that gallery here.

As far as important events go, my 22nd birthday was certainly near the top of the list. This year my birthday fell on a Thursday, and also coincided with one of the Koinonia fellowship dinners here at the Institute. As a result, I had the pleasure of leading worship for the Omega group on my birthday. To make it especially memorable, we had a dog that wanted to join in. He added his whining and yelping to our voices as we made a joyful sound for the Lord! After the dinner one of my friends, Mindy, made cake and had a few people over to celebrate my birthday. It was basically awesome!

The first, and possibly the largest, social event of month was the FFI barn dance (and it happened the very next day!). Everyone got dressed up in their boots, hats and blue jeans and had a great time line dancing, square dancing, and participating in all sorts of crazy group activities. They hired a real square dance caller, and he taught us how to do all sorts of dances. I had a really hard time with the line dancing, but was pretty good at the square dancing. To get in the door, each set of roommates had to bake a dessert. I made Rice Krispy Treats. In the process I learned that if you make them in the microwave you need to have a really big bowl, otherwise the marshmallows expand and stick to the inside of the microwave. Thanks mom ;)

The weekend after the barn dance I drove up to Denver with two friends (Bernie and Christine) to see Mae in concert. They were joined by Discover America, Mutemath and Circa Survive. The first two groups put on a great show, but Circa Survive screamed a little too much for my taste. Mae was awesome! They played most of the songs of “The Everglow” but threw a few old classics into the mix. It was my favorite show of the semester!

The next weekend we had another fellowship dinner, but instead of leading worship I got to participate in a lip sync contest. We had a group do “Thriller” by Michael Jackson, another group did the “Seize the Day” from the Newsies soundtrack, a third did the Cheerleader skit from Saturday Night Live, a fourth did “Ice, Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice. Those ladies looked pretty ghetto with their baggy pants, backwards hats and silver front teeth. My group did “That Thing You Do” by the Wonders (from the That Thing You Do soundtrack). We should have won, but somehow the judge picked another group ;)

The next week, I got to attend a Focus broadcast taping. Dr. Dobson was at the annual board meeting somewhere in Georgia, so he did not ask the questions, but John Fuller and Dr. Bill Maier led the discussion. The broadcast was on the practical evidence against living with your future spouse before marriage. It was really interesting to watch the broadcasting process, although I don’t think that the subject matter really applied to me. After the broadcast they took a few questions from the students, so I might be on the show when they air it in February :)

On November 5th, Jeremy Camp, Bethany Dillon and the Afters came to Colorado Springs. I didn’t feel like paying for another concert (I had already attended 3 this semester), but my good friend Jeremy Pond happened to get three free tickets (he knows people that know people, and that’s what really matters in the music industry). Anyway, he invited me to go with him. In addition to the tickets, he had Meet & Greet passes, so I got to shake hands with all the artists. The concert was pretty good. I enjoyed Bethany Dillon much more than I thought I would. The Afters were a little to “pop” for my tastes, but they put on a good show. Jeremy Camp has certainly matured as a performer since I saw him three years ago at Spirit West Coast. There were lights, lasers, lots of smoke and ear-splitting rock and roll. I especially enjoyed the last few songs of the set when he really rocked out (his acoustic stuff is alright, but I wish he would either go Alternative or Acoustic Pop, not sit on the fence between the two). We wound up the evening at Waffle House (which is probably the coolest, if not the only, fast-food waffle place in the world).

In the next few weeks I had two tests and two papers due. I spent my first late night studying this semester (and that was only until 1:00 AM). We’re actually almost done with our tests and papers right now. I’ve got two more papers to write and two tests to take and then… FREEDOM!

Before I came to the institute, one of my big goals was to become more “domestic.” I wanted to make sure that I knew (at least to some small degree) how to use the Joy of Cooking cookbook (I also wanted to learn how to iron my clothes, but I think that will have to wait until Christmas). To this end, namely, becoming a better cook, I invited four young ladies over for dinner. Instead of picking something easy, I decided that I was going to cook a chicken for dinner. It was an interesting experience. After many emergency calls home for maternal guidance, I pulled Mr. Chickie out of the oven and served him with baked potatoes and green beans almondine. Nobody died. Actually the food was quite good. I have a new desire to learn how to properly carve a bird because this was the hardest part of the whole process (along with pulling his frozen neck out of his body and washing him in warm water to quickly thaw him). I had a great time.

Over the next few weeks I spent quite a bit of time studying and having fun. On Thursday, November 17 we got to hear Ray Vander Laan speak about the “eastern” perspective. He talked about how we, as westerners, miss many of the subtle details found in Scripture because we don’t know the context and background. He was an amazing speaker and I got a lot out of our 6 hours together.

Our Thanksgiving vacation began after class that day. I had a lot of fun during Thanksgiving break. In the first couple of days, I finished the Calvary Gateway website and started working on the Hooker Oak Alliance website.

All work and no play makes Matt a dull boy. To this end, I took off really early Monday morning with my friend Troy to go snowboarding at Arapahoe Basin just outside of Keystone, CO. We had a great day snowboarding. I biffed it pretty good a few different times. We spent the night at the Arapahoe Inn which was staffed by weird european girls who did not seem very helpful. The rates were very reasonable, however, and the company was excellent. On the second day, we were joined by about 30 students and staff from the Institute. Troy ended up skiing that day, but I stuck to the snowboard and by the end of the day was able to race down the hill with my skiing friends while staying mostly in control. I don’t think I had a bad fall the whole day! I can’t wait to buy a snowboard and season lift ticket for Donner Ski Ranch this winter.

The next day I picked my buddy Andre Fox from the Denver airport and brought him to Colorado Springs. Andre graduated from TAC in my class and is teaching at a private school in Napa this year. The next day was Thanksgiving and Andre and I spent the entire morning and most of the afternoon cooking. We made a turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, and a bunch of other stuff that I’ve forgotten at this point. We had Troy and Jen, two of my friends, over for dinner and they both brought goodies with them. The rest of the day (after the clean-up was done) was spent vegging out in front of some excellent videos (Christmas Vacation and a few others). All in all it was a pretty awesome “first” thanksgiving on my own.

Andre hung around for a few more days. We visited the crazy sales/shoppers on Black Friday, but started at around 11:00 A.M. and didn’t buy anything. On Saturday we made the drive up to the top of Pike’s Peak. It was incredibly windy at the top, and I heard that they closed the road soon after we left. A few days later it snowed on the top and I would imagine that it is pretty difficult to get up there right now.

That’s pretty much what happened during October and November. I’ll get to work on the update for December (and should probably start on January while I’m at it!). Check back soon for more updates!

It is really cold!

Matt | December 5, 2005 at 7:59 am | In General | Comments Off

I just wanted to let everyone know that. Check out the weather report here.

P.S. I am still working on the next “big” update on my life. Stay tuned…