Year #2 out of high school, 04-05

Here is the 2nd installment in my little quest to sum up the past 5 years of my life. Enjoy it if you can.

This was the year of Bible college. The previous semester my friend Simon went there and from visiting him there and seeing the beautiful campus along with all the wonderfully friendly people, I knew it was something I too must do. I was definitely ready to go out and meet some new people and it seemed like the right place for it. So I went, and strangely, right before moving, I reconnected with a few old friends from high school, and even developed a small crush on one. So now that I was at a nice new place with plenty of wonderful people, I kind of wanted to go back home and hang out with my recently reacquainted friends. I also for some reason became a bit of a recluse and was not too eager to meet new people. I mostly spent all my free time in the library either doing homework or writing long emails to people. Being the slightly socially challenged person that I sometimes am, the internet became my social outlet, and thats a bit of a sad way to live really. But I would just write to friends back home all day, and with a few of them now working in offices, there was always someone there to write back, and this was enough to keep me happy. Nevertheless, some people forced their way into my life, and others I eventually, towards the end of the semester, became good friends with.

One of the forcers was a friendly girl who went by the nickname of Peanut. I worked security at the school, and one day, while on shift, she brought a dead decaying rat to me. After that, we were friends. Not really sure how that turned into friendship, but all I remember is one day she just asked me to be her boyfriend, just for the day. I agreed, and so she sat next to me in chapel and ate lunch with me. We would sometimes pass notes back and forth in class like we were in junior high. She was a character that girl, and would always find fun little ways to annoy me such as coming into the library to throw tennis balls at me, or take something from me and hide it. I don't think the librarian liked her too much though. Our little friendship was short lived though. She drew on a small hand towel once and gave it to me as a token to remember her by, but I think I had to use it for something once, and so I took a picture of it, but it itself is now long gone. I have hardly talked to her since.

There were some memorable people from this place. The director of the school would say some of the the most ridiculous things in his sermons that made sense when in context, but would would make us laugh hysterically when we would joke about them afterwards. Such examples are, "I love to see women breast feed," or, "I don't care if its sacrificed to the devil, it's good." If you can figure out the proper context of these, I will give you a dollar. They may have not been too frequent, but there were some definite good times and good memories from this semester.

One of the only lasting friendships to come from the semester though was Caleb Jim Mckim. I think we mostly became friends because he, along with 3 other guys I knew, all decided to go to the extension campus in York England the following semester. So we all figured we better get to know each other, and he, being the guy he is, made it pretty easy to do. So now it was spring 2005 and the five of us were all headed for England. It was my first real experience of leaving home for an extended period of time, and leaving a home is an interesting experience. I knew I was coming back of course, but just knowing you aren't going to see all these people you love for 4 months was weird to go through.

My first flight across the world was something I'll never forget. Its so weird to just have 8 hours of a day suddenly missing from your life and its morning outside but your body just knows you should be in bed in the dark somewhere. When we got there, the people at the school told us to just wait until night to finally go to sleep and we will be fine: yeah right. I think we maybe lasted an hour before finding our beds. I hardly slept at all that first week there. Plus my mind was depressingly busy thinking about pointless things that for some reason made me sad regarding a few friendships. So unfortunately the beginning of this amazing experience was spoiled by my then easily saddened self. A few of the girls from the school even started calling me Eeyore from time to time. I eventually got over it though, and did end up having some of the best times of my life over there. Living with 4 very close friends in an ancient really cool city and sleeping in a building that was itself older than my home country was amazing to say the least. I still often long for those days again. Other than a little homework we had to do, life was so simple. We had to walk everywhere we went and got a sufficient allowance from the school to live off. The 3 day weekends they gave us usually involved a day trip to somewhere else cool in England. I met tons of people over there, some of them just for a day and never to see again, and others for a little longer, but I will never forget that old walled in city. That place had many characters, such as the homeless guy with the cell phone, or the crazy Italian guy Paulo who owned the little deli down the street, or the Hindu people who owned the Indian food restaurant and would joke about selling Elephant meat. I'll never forget the Yum Yum's at Copeland's bakery neither. Our own school had plenty of characters as well. My goal of the semester seemed to be to play a prank on Steve on a weekly basis. Some were pretty mean, such as giving him a heavy dose of laxative tea without his knowledge. Still feel a little bad about that one, but it was quite funny. All the other ones usually just were clever ways of dumping water on him from different locations. The school staff were characters as well. There was Mike and Helen, the old proper English couple, Ed Major, who would say "I'm only kidding" after almost every sentence (which eventually turned into a bit of a gag between all our friends), and the dean of men Doug, who was the nicest man ever but also would cause the most awkward situations where he would get close and stare you right in the eyes as if looking into your soul and ask you how you've been doing as if wanting to hear every personal detail about your life. I also lived with a missionary family for a week which was fun at times. They were a nice group. There was only a total of 40 or so students, and only 12 of them were boys, so we all got to know each other pretty good. Overall, it was a 4 months that I will forever look back upon fondly. Going home was a sad time saying goodbye to everyone, but it was also exciting to get back and be home.

So that was that year. Quite an adventurous one full of new experiences. I think I grew up a bit more this year. Learned a few things such as all the basic living things like making your own food to eat, and the like.

Significant passings of the year: Johnny Mishriki - loved that little guy.