If only to see the world...

So it is 7:50 in the morning and I can barely stay awake. My only thought is going into this picture I have shown here (New Zealand). I love to travel and I find much enjoyment when I do. To see new things, experience new cultures, new languages, new lifestyles, and meet interesting people. I know I have been talking about the unltimate jobs lately and I think another ultimate job would be a travel show host. Take Anthony Bourdain (http://www.anthonybourdain.com/) for example. This man is a chef, bestselling author, and traveler. He gets to travel to several different places around the world, eating different foods, and just tells people about it on the Travel channel. That would be awesome!! But I guess I will see what happens in the future...I just need to win the lotto.

However, this week of school has been a bit hectic, at least the first half. I had a map test in my European Geography class and it wasn't that bad. We had about ~160 places to remember and many I had never heard of, like Pantelleria, the strait of Bonafacio, so I spent many an hour looking through my atlases. Then I have a Case law paper due and a spanish composition, and many other assignments. Sometimes I just wish professors would get together and discuss when they will assign specific things, so we don't have them all at once. (But that is major wishful thinking).

- Jason

Just another week @ ODU

This week is definitely going to be a very busy one, but I plan to not let that bother me. Even though I have large, excruciating, mounds of work to do at school it can't be that bad...right? All I know is that I am ready to graduate, get married, and get paid money to do large, excruciating, mounds of work instead of paying to have that pressed upon me.

I think the ultimate job would probably be a staff worker for InterVarsity. I mean hear me out...you get to hang out with college students all day and be in the college atmosphere, drink hot chocolate or coffee (your choice), talk about God and how he is working on campus and in the lives of others, play frisbee with folks, take who knows how many walks outside when it is beautiful, delegate responsibilty to other students, and still get paid to do it. Now that sounds like a pretty cool job to me :)

Since it is my senior year, I have been looking for potential places to work and things to do after I graduate. I would love to move to Va. Beach for a while and work for a couple years, unitl Ash and I can raise enough support to go over seas to do missions work. I also think it would be sweet to get a job as a youth minister somewhere in Va Beach too. I just enjoy hanging out with people and talking about God....good times! But, I guess I will see what God has instore for me...fingers crossed. Now...back to the large mounds of excruciating work.

Woo Hoo Weekend Time!!!!

Did I ever mention that I love the weekend. It has to be the best time ever. I mean, hear me out. You go to school and work for the entire week and not really get much sleep and you are forced to do things that are going to be graded and placed in your permanent folder, to follow and judge you for the rest of your life. Then comes the weekend, when you are hopefully free to sleep in, or go somewhere, or make a big breakfast, or even just vegg on the sofa in your living room.

However, it may be the plan of some notorious, evil master-minded professor or boss to assign you homework or "ask" you to come in and work on the weekend. That right there truly puts a damper on the whole festive occasion. So, my brillant well thought-out plan is to simply win the lottery and make my life one big weekend. This way I may be able to conquer the evil plans of those anti-weekend pickiters and truly have the result of pulling a coup d'état and feeling the rush of the weekend revolutionist!!! Hail the mighty weekend!!!!...

...or I simply call in sick to work or make up an excuse about an anti-cyclonic depression that pulled my homework in and completely destroyed it, spreading the remains of my spanish 102 excercises all over the Azores.

¡Vive el fin del semana! (Long live the weekend!!)

School has started again :(

Well...school has started again and I am definitely not very excited to do more work and study for tests. However, I am going into this year being newly engaged, it being my senior year, and having a blast with InterVarsity. So, in turn, I don't feel as if this will all be that bad. Sometimes I just wonder why I can't go to school, hang out with folks, but not have to go to class. (That is how life should be...but it's not, sadly) Oh well...
This year in IV I have been in charge of setting up the new IV website. You should definitely go and check it out. (www.oduiv.org). I also have it linked in the side column. It has been wonderful to learn how to design a webpage and for the first time ever doing it, I don't think it is too bad.
I have also had the pleasure of hooking up with Doug and co-leading a small group this year on Monday nights. We have been discussing the Book of Mark and I love it. One reason I enjoy Mark is that it starts pretty much when Jesus's missional ministry starts. I think that is a good access point for someone like me, who is deeply thinking about going into missions. I look forward to seeing what will come of this group and have to constantly remind myself to leave it in God's hands. (hard though).

Later!

Mitla, Oaxaca, Mexico