One-Goal Games

Hello blog-readers and happy Friday! I am super excited that it is nearly the weekend for a number of reasons! First I get actual cases at work next week! Whoop whoop... good bye paperwork, hello kids! Second, it's Pocono Race Weekend and Hillclimb weekend... which means I will have limited hearing abilities and a whole lot of sunburn come Monday morning! And finally, I plan on playing a ridiculous amount of unofficial hockey this weekend! So, if you are a hockey player, come down the rink tomorrow at two! =)

One-Goal Games. Between the team I coach ("junior league") and the team I play on ("adult league"), I have had just about enough of these one-goal, close game, overtime and regulation losses. My kids have been working their butts off to lose three straight games by one goal, and my adult league team has lost four games by one goal, two of which were with less than five seconds left! Unbelievably terrible luck! Ugh... that changes tonight though! (Hopefully)

Pictures. I'll post more next week. =)

And so the weekend shall begin. I hope you enjoy yours! =)

#100

Greetings! This is official post number 100! Whoop whoop! For all of those who have read these posts from the beginning, I salute you--good work! This will be a relatively short, quick update.

CPM. I love meeting with this committee. There are some pretty awesome people in this group--friendly, funny, dedicated, humble, caring, etc etc. Oh, and they said yes to continuation of my status as inquirer. After I take the Bible Content exam in August, I will have to meet with them again. At this time, I hope to become a Candidate--so exciting.

Weekend in WC. It really wasn't the entire weekend... I arrived in beloved WC Saturday night and only stayed until Monday morning. I got to hang out with my college friends, which I haven't done since Christmas (which was shocking when I realized this). I went to church, spent the better part of Sunday with none other than DM (street fair, mall, and chinese food)--just like we used to do. We even got some Star Wars watching in while I was there! Fun fun fun.

Respite. My time in West Chester was also a time of rest for me. Rest from hockey. I didn't realize how much abuse hockey can do to your body until I woke up after a rest day and EVERYTHING was sore. I mean everything, too--back, arms, knees. When I got back, I went right back to the grind with a jr league practice, reffed a roller game, and then played in a roller game. I love it, though--every minute.

Weekends. My weekends are filling up with fun things, especially weddings, pretty quickly. I am trying to write in another visit to West Chester, but it may not be until late July. For all of you that I did not see and/or get a chance to talk to at church on Sunday, I hope to see you the next time I am in town. Until then, feel free to shoot me an email and let me know how you are doing! =)

I hope all of you are enjoying your summers! Peace.

CPM coming up!

I have no excuse. Absolutely none. It has been nearly two weeks since I have posted anything, and there is really no reason for it. I really don't go on my computer all that much since I don't have papers to write, or documents to download, or a bazillion emails to tend to. Now that I am on a computer... mostly just to download and print out hockey schedules for my team, I figured I would write a quick update.

Paperwork. My work is still pretty much only paperwork. This is quite boring and tedious. In about one week's time I am moving into more hands-on stuff, and in two weeks I should have my very own cases to work with! Yay! Boredom be gone!

Hockey. After all my days of paperwork, I routinely head to the hockey rink to coach, ref, or play some puck. This is an everyday occurrence. I know that I promised pictures and video, but my skating/reffing pants and/or athletic shorts aren't very accommodating to phones or cameras. Also, the weather has not cooperating very much. Rain rain rain! Ugh!

CPM Meeting. Woo, something exciting coming up on my schedule (well really there are plenty of exciting things--weekend trips, Pocono, dart parties, bike runs, cookouts, iron man games, all star competitions, etc etc). I am meeting with Donegal Presbytery's CPM this Monday in Lancaster! This means that I will be in West Chester this Sunday! Ah yeah! And I hope to see all of you whom I haven't seen in a very long time. Anyway, I have annual consultations with the CPM to kind of just check in with them and let them know how things are going! It should be quite fun, actually... no nervous nelly here! =)

Again, I am sorry for the lack of updating. I will do my best to update throughout the summer with things that will be interesting to read about. I hope all is well with each of you! Take care of one another and be kind to everyone. Blessings and Peace!

Summer begins!

It has become pretty clear to me that I am going to be pretty bad about updating this over the summer--sorry. I have been quite busy, and by the time I get home at night, I am exhausted! Work, hockey, dogs, chores, church, etc etc... it doesn't end. It's a good thing that I love everything I am doing, and I am happy to report that I am beginning to develop a nice little routine for the summer! =)

Hockey. Now that there are 12 teams in the adult league, there are games every day of the week. Coaching/ reffing MWF, playing/ reffing STuThSa! Ahhh! That's a lot of hockey! The teams I coach should be pretty competitive this year, and the team I play on will be a serious contender for the championship. I am going to try to post some league pictures and/or videos on here sometime soon. Keep checking back.

TSS. For a summer job, I am basically doing TSS work for Carbon County focusing on Autism Spectrum Disorders. To this point, I have been absolutely swamped with paperwork! Ahh, it should lighten up next week or so, and I'll be ready to put it in cruise control until the end of the summer.

A Whole New World. Talk about a change of pace. Wow! I almost feel like I have encountered some kind of serious culture shock. Home is so much different than Princeton--it's unbelievable. It's hard to articulate, but there is a profound difference in what matters. For instance in Princeton, intelligence and 'book' knowledge are of extremely high value. In NEPA, however, people can't care less about the main differences in theology between Luther and Calvin. On the other hand, knowing how to jump start a car isn't too important in Princeton, but you'll get funny looks if you don't have that trick in your back pocket up here in NEPA. And trust me when I say that this is only one of a handful of differences! This is going to be quite an interesting and fun summer...

I will try to update this as often as I can, especially now that I have even more people to keep in touch with (hooray for new friends). Realistically, I am aiming for once a week updates. Take care, friends! =)

With Joy and Happiness

This week was oober busy, friends, so I have had zero time to sit down and write a blog post. This nice thing about this week is that it is over! I have successfully completed all of my assignments, exams, projects, papers, everything! Wooo Hooo! Time for a loooong weekend before May term begins! Before moving onto that, however, I will try to fully recap this past week:

NT Exam. After spending 3 days or so memorizing the entire New Testament, studying key terms, reviewing essays, remembering maps, etc etc. I took the test Wednesday morning, and I feel great about it. Easy peasy! Word in the cafeteria has it that the hardest part about the whole thing was Scripture Identification. Lucky for me, I am very good at this without actively studying it. It's just the kind of memory I have, I suppose. Also, we had some interesting bonus question: seven dwarfs, seven churches in Revelation, quotation from Jude, etc. Our NT professors have quite a sense of humor.

Hesed in Pastoral Care. My 12 page PC paper was about my theology of Pastoral Care. I wrote about the importance of hesed--that is, steadfast love and faithfulness--in care-giving. It's quite interesting. I discussed compassion, empathy, and co-suffering on three levels: individual, communal, and cosmic. I'll let you all know what my professor thought of my paper in about a week's time. ;)

Hannah's Identity. My other paper, which ended up being about 10 pages in length was a little bit more difficult to write. There isn't much literature on Women's Narratives in the Old Testament, so much of what I wrote was just from me (with little scholarly support). I made an argument from a feminist perspective about Hannah's search for self-identity. We'll see if my professor thinks I made a compelling argument.

Psalms. I love the Psalms! They're pretty awesome. I have had to do a number of projects for this class, and I did each and every one of them with joy and happiness! If you'd like to see some of my work, shoot me an email, send me a text, or find me at church on some random Sunday; I'd be happy to share. =) After going to the singing portion of my final, my whole practicum class went to our professor's house for a cookout! It was pretty awesome to relax at this point during finals week!

 

Let's go Pens! On top of all of these finals, I have had to deal with the up-down, roller coaster, inconsistent playing of my beloved Pittsburgh Penguins! Now, I know that many of you reading this are Flyers fans, but come on, this series has been ridiculous. The defense and goalies need to step it up! I'm hoping we push it to a game 7 after tomorrow's game! Let's go Pens!

I hope all is well with each and every one of you! Blessings and Peace!! 

The Holiest of Weeks

Greetings sisters and brothers! =) I just now recognized that I have not recapped the latter part of Holy Week or Easter through a blog post. So, that is what I am going to do now! Holy Week for me was filled with a whole lot of services, a whole lot of running around, and a whole lot of reflection. I hope yours was just as fruitful as mine has been. And also... lent is over! Congratulations to those of you who gave something up or took something on and succeeded! To those of you who struggled... you still have next year (or better yet, any forty days throughout the year that you choose)!

Letters of Paul. Well friends, I was as faithful as I hoped I would be with my Scripture memorization! I have memorized more Pauline verses than I thought I ever could or would! Hooray! I must admit, avoiding ice cream and cookies was much more difficult! This is probably for two reasons: my love of ice cream and cookies, but also my affinity to scripture memorization. I hope to continue my routine without restricting myself to Pauline verses.


Maundy Thursday. In addition to other holy services at the beginning of the week in chapel, I went to Nassau Presbyterian Church for a Maundy Thursday service. It was exactly what I expected of Maundy Thursday (and just as emotion-eliciting as ever)! Also, the preacher referenced a commentary on Mark that I thought was interesting. The Scripture lesson came from Mark 14--Peter's Denial. The preacher commented that we often breeze through this passage, and when in John, we jump right to the threefold declaration of love after the Resurrection. The commentary, however, urges us to focus on this passage and draws attention to the space between Peter and Jesus after each denial--it increases. Interesting observation.


7 Last Words. Friday I went to chapel for their special service. It was a Tenebrae service of the 7 last words of Jesus interspersed with Psalm 22 and, of course, music. Since the service was at 11:30, it wasn't particularly dark, but the service was just as powerful. Thank you seminary chapel for your faithfulness!


Easter Hockey Game. After an understandably emotional week of services, I headed home with a friend of mine to spend Easter in NEPA! We spent a lot of time with my family and even went to a WBS Penguins hockey game Saturday evening! Let's go Pens!

Easter morning, we went to the Presbyterian Church in my hometown, and then headed back to our academic Christian bubble in Princeton! Overall it was a pretty swell week + weekend!

Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen!

Peace.

Before I came to Seminary: Cruisin' in Julia

Good day dear friends! I hope this post finds each of you well and also enjoying these posts. I must admit, they have been pretty fun to write about. I will post about my wonderful trip to Washington D.C. very shortly (which I think most of you will enjoy); I should have some down time when I am home this week.

Now, we shall explore earlier parts of my life starting with one perspective of the latter part of high school before I came to seminary:


My 1st car. Oh Julia, my first car ever: a 1995 Chevy Cavalier 2-door teal sporty-looking thing. It cost me $300... but $300 to a 16 year old is a lot of money. It was a used car with a lot of dings. It was 4-cylinder that sounded like a lawnmower on big hills. Julia, Julia, how I miss her. She was a great car--good in the winter, big enough to fit 4 teenage girls into, no problem. After I got her, I needlessly cleaned her out, changed her oil, rotated her tires, scrubbed her hubcaps, changed her brakes (all with the help of my Poppa Bear). Knowing about cars is something that my dad taught me pretty early in my life. If I was going to be driving one, or even driving in one, I should probably know that basics... "just in case." Sometimes I take this teaching for granted; over the years, I have come to realize how few people have received such informal training about cars. Some people quite simply, just don't know about these things. My dad made sure that this would never be the case for me, and for this I am grateful.

Cruisin'. What is the first thing a 16-year old does the second she gets her license? Drive around aimlessly with no destination. Driving just to drive. Now, now, now, this was back in the days when gas was less than $2 a gallon, so it really wasn't a huge economical hit to just be cruising. One would think that this urge to drive around with no purpose would fade pretty soon, but that was not the case with me. As a matter of fact, I sought out and found some crusin' buddies. KR, NH, and LE were just such people. We would aimlessly drive anywhere and everywhere. Much of the time we would explore the backroads where I live, or take a trip out to Wal-Mart to purchase yarn and knitting supplies (that would be used while watching a Disney movie later that night). Such wonderful friendships were built and maintained through this completely pointless activity of driving around.

"Don't Stop Me Now!" A Queen song that we would all sing at the top of our lungs while cruising or on our way to school in the mornings. I can't listen to this song without thinking about Julia and all my cruising buddies.

WBS Penguins! Another great thing about getting your license is that you no longer need to trouble your parents to take you places (this was extremely helpful to my parents concerning sports practices). Attaining my license allowed me to attend more AHL hockey games than ever! I usually went with a nice crowd of people, or just my best buddy! It was always a wonderful time! Let's go Pens! =)

How this helps: priceless car knowledge, stories about the "old days," relationships can be built up anywhere!


Next Post: {D.C. Post} then Let's Go Wreckers!

Peace. =)

Before I came to Seminary: Ankle Breakin' Moves

Most of my childhood and now into my young adult life I have played hockey. It started because I wanted to be with my brother instead of going to softball while he was at hockey (I ended up doing both). Hockey is something that I have come to really enjoy and be good at. As a matter of fact, my brother and I are each exceptional hockey players individually, but if you put us together on a team--watch out! We've been playing together so long, and we know each other so well that we don't even have to think about where the other is or what the other is doing--we just know! It's like sibling ESP, and it's really cool (albeit frustrating to our opponents). Anyway, before I came to seminary:

Roller Hockey. Growing up, I played street hockey: literally little kids running around with sticks and heavy amounts of protective gear in the hot, humid, sticky summertime air. Since there are age limits in most hockey leagues, when I began to approach my limit in the "Junior league," I strapped some inline hockey skates on my feet-sies and learned to go at the game from this angle with far more speed (and if any of you all think ice skating and roller skating are the same... think again! It was a whole new monster I had to take on!). Once I out-aged the junior league, I entered the adult league where I have been playing every summer that I have been home. I have won a championship* and played on three separate teams since my inaugural season. The league isn't huge--8 teams--which allows me to know pretty much all of the players on a personal level. This makes everything all the more fun!

"Put me in coach!" When I aged out of playing in the junior league, I immediately transitioned from being player to being coach! I absolutely love coaching! I was able to coach the little players (age 5-12) as well as the bigger players (age 10-16). The little ones are so darn cute; they melt my heart every season... and they try so hard to be good. And they're still at that age where Mom and/or Dad come(s) to every game! Whereas I focus on teaching the little ones the fundamentals of the game, I try to teach the big players more about harnessing those fundamentals and being sportsmanlike. This can be challenging at times, but with a little bit of patience and determination, it could be done. I have been lucky enough to have both JV (little ones) and Varsity (big players) teams win championships! Woo Hoo!

Referee. Another responsibility that I take up in this league is one of reffing. When I play sports, I try to play them in a smart way. In order to do this, I know the rules inside and out, and upside and down. It's not that I memorized a rule book, but from watching and playing hockey for so many years, I know all of the rules. The problem that can arise in hockey is that much is left to the referees discretion: contact, icing, too many men, frozen pucks, unsportsmanlike conduct, etc, etc. I never realised how difficult a ref's job could be until I became one. Trust me when I say that I enjoy reffing the junior league games more than the roller league games. Kids tend to argue and yell far less than adults when it comes to sports. Reffing has also granted me more patience with refs in all sports... although I do occasionally get into discussions about enforcement of the rules during intermissions and timeouts, I try to cut them some slack. Nevertheless, I love to ref.

Pick-up games. Since I play, coach, and ref in the same league, I am at the hockey rink pretty much every single evening. The problem is: there is usually this awkward gap between when I'd get off of work (somewhere between 12-2) and when hockey starts at 6pm. What's a girl to do? Call other hockey friends that don't work during that time, throw my brother into the car, and invite some older junior league kids who know how to skate, and play some pick-up games! These are always incredibly fun: no rules, no clock, no score, random teams, hottest part of the day, soaking wet gear, but an insane amount of fun fun fun! I kid you not when I say that many of my summers are consumed with hockey!

I have made lifelong friends of all ages playing in this hockey league. Oh, what wonderful people.

How this Helps: Teamwork, Leadership, Discretion & Fairness, Fun, and Integrity.

Next Post: Crusin' in Julia

Blessings to you all! =)

*Only person ever to win every kind of championship in HS Hockey League, and only girl to win Adult League championship.

"Spontaneous Freedom Lack-of-Planning Thing"

I'm on a break from school. I fully realized this when I was bored and had time to take an afternoon nap! Naps = awesome! I have an incredible amount of built up energy and am definitely ready to go back to school. In the meantime, however, here are a few things I've been doing to treat my insane amounts of boredom:

Winter Classic. It's hockey time! Now... the real Winter Classic isn't until January 2 at 1:00pm EST, but our winter classic took place yesterday. A number of my hockey friends and I thought it would be a wonderful idea to play roller hockey in 30 degree temperature, steady rain, and a soaked hockey rink. Surprisingly I only had only one bad wipe out. 5 goals and 4 assists on 11 total goals plus a great afternoon with friends made up for the slight shoulder discomfort experienced from my wipe out. We were all frozen to the core within two hours, but it was a wonderful time filled with laughter.

Family Dinner. It's a rare event that my entire family is in the same place at the same time. My younger brother and I are both away at school most of the year, my older brother works night shift, my half-sister has a full time job and a husband, and Kim is busy with her first family. Last night, we managed to all be available at the same time! Yay! So we went out to hibachi for my mom's birthday and some family time. It was a BLAST!

Doctor's Appointments. The interesting thing about being in this nomad portion of my life is that I have this terrible habit of ignoring doctors' checkups.This week home, though, I made an appointment with my good old orthopedic surgeon. And it's a good thing I did... apparently, I dislocated the kneecap on my bad knee and now it's kinda out of place. Long story short: I need to go back to physical therapy, and hopefully that will remedy the issue. 

Reading. Hebrew! I'm trying to get a running head-start for intensive Hebrew II in the J-term. I've also been catching up on blogs (I love blogs), watching ted.com videos, and I started reading the Chronicles of Narnia series! I am also thinking about tackling the Bible in another translation this year (NIV, NRSV--done), perhaps the NKJV or ESV. 

I can't wait to be back at school and into my routine again. This "spontaneous freedom lack-of-planning thing" is weird for me. I hope all is well with each of you! God's blessings! =)

P.S. I wish I could wake up to this every morning:

Xena at 9:00am