You Can Play This at My Funeral...

I must, I must keep blogging. Life has gotten busy, but I don't want to abandon the blog.

I'm in Berea! I love Berea. This cozy Kentucky town is just right for me. It's just as charming in the green summertime as it was in a snow-dusted January. The rolling green farmlands on the trip here were a soothing treat.

Tomorrow is Berea College orientation for transfer students, and I'm both nervous and excited. Mostly excited. It's just, no matter how much I like the town and the school, the thought of starting over where I don't know a soul is a little...oh, daunting. But thrilling too. As you can see, my emotions are mixed.

But no matter what I feel, I want a challenge. And here it is. An adventure, if you will. I hope to meet lots of people tomorrow. Talk with them. Laugh with them. Get comfortable with them, even a little. Maybe I'll find a roommate. Maybe she's right here at this hotel and we'll meet suddenly at the continental breakfast in the morning, in line by the waffle machine.

I honestly have no idea what I want in a roommate. When I think through it, I vacillate wildly between hoping for someone compatible and like-minded and someone vastly different whom I can learn a lot from. The most important thing, when all is said and done, is agreement about lights out. I think I can adjust to any personality as long as there aren't crazy parties going on in my room at 4 in the morning and I can get some kind of sleep.

I have high hopes about Berea. I want to learn all kinds of mind-boggling things, I want to write, engage in conversations. I want to make friends I can share with, laugh with, pray with. The sense I get about the place is that there will be room for me to grow as a person. And I do need that :)

I can't help thinking of our visit here five months ago when I was hoping so hard I'd get accepted, and so uncertain of the future, and here I am, orientating tomorrow! What will come in these next few years, I wonder? God just blessed me so much. For so long I just never thought I'd find a school I liked that would be possible for me to attend. And here I am.

Today Ethan, Dad and I did two tours at Mammoth Cave, about 120 miles from here. So now I can say I've officially eaten lunch in a cave. A boxed lunch. Complete with apple, cookie, and vegetable soup. The soup was necessary, let me tell you. It was damp and 54 degrees. I was prepared this time, however, after the experience Dad and I had two years ago at the same place.

I believe I've blogged about it before. After an intense downpour that drenched us on the way into the cave, we spent 2 hours in the 54 degree cavern...in dripping shorts and t-shirts. Brr!! But I definitely have vivid memories of that tour.

Today, Ethan enjoyed his first real caving experience (ok, if you call following a five foot wide, artificially lighted, tour guided path a "real" caving experience). "I think I want to live in here." he announced. "You could have a pet bat," I told him. "They're like little chicken nuggets with wings," a little girl in the group said.

On the way from Bowling Green to Berea, we listened to an older Mark Shultz cd that I'd dug up from a dusty cd case. "Running Just to Catch Myself" is a family favorite and we hadn't heard it in a while. It's an upbeat, funny song about a day of rat-race in the corporate world. Ethan approved. "You can play this at my funeral," he told us. "'Cause I don't want ya'll weeping at me." "And pour coffee on me," he added. "But no roses. Only the girls can put roses on me." I'm glad he's getting all this straightened out now.

Gotta love these little moments.