Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Pinky? I think so, Brain -- how do they get the best stuff on earth for Snapples?

I just want to say congrats to Frank for figuring out Alexander's nickname before reading the last post. That is indeed impressive.

For those of you continuing on from two days ago, you'll have noticed a rather large change to the layout: I threw out the old one and made my own. I rather like it, but I'm having issues figuring out where to put navigation. Tonics suggested hiding the bar at the top (which is easy enough to do) and making my own with stuff I actually want up there, but I don't think I could easily make it look as nice as Google's. (Should I have aliased Google?) If any of you have ideas, and either are good with aesthetics or have some web-design background (put your hand down, Alexander), I'd appreciate the comment.

The flight to Jamaica, which lay-overed in Charlotte, was not too long. Somehow it felt shorter than the one to St. Louis, and it definitely was shorter than the ones to Hawaii and Australia. Lately I feel like I've had quite a bit of flying experience. That was never something on the to-do list growing up.

Much like last year with Detroit, the mission training days really did little in the ways of preparing us. It was good to at least get acquainted with everyone, or at least most people, but I could only give you the names of maybe six people (and four of them are in my Bible study) before getting off the plane. That said, after spending eleven days with thirty-four wonderful people, I now know all of their names (which is a large feat for me). Really, that was what I enjoyed on this mission trip. I did enjoy the work, and even working with the kids, though that was way out of my comfort zone, but most of all, I enjoyed getting to know the people on our team, particularly the guys.

I feel like I have a lot of female friends and very few male ones, especially not being in a CORE this year. As wonderful as my female friends are, there's just something different about hanging out with a bunch of guys you know really well. There were twelve of us guys in all, leaving twenty-two girls.

So, we got off the plane in Montego Bay. After getting through customs (which was a pain) and waiting about an hour for the bus (which would become not uncommon throughout the week), we were greeted by Pastor James and put on a bus driven by Everton (correct me if I got his name wrong). Driving in Jamaica is a bit of an experience. It never really freaked me out, mostly because I'm pretty laid back when it comes to personal safety, but there were times I thought it was possible someone or more than someone might die during our 4 hour drive south to Portmore. The instance of this that comes to mind, and would probably be the first to come to any of our minds, was a time when we were coming around a blind curve which turned into a narrow bridge with a cliff to our left and no guard rail. (Mind you, they drive on the left.) We went around the curve at probably 35MPH and sudddenly he slammed on the breaks only a few feet shy of hitting a semi coming up the other direction. Drivers in Jamaica are pretty used to this, and it took about 10 minutes to back everyone up in both directions, let a couple smaller cars go past us, and get both larger vehicles on their merry way. Coming off the bridge and into the next curve, I got to see a woman's terror as she was sure her small car was going to be smashed by the bus. I also heard that the back left tire might have left the ground (and hung off the cliff) as we took that turn.

We got to the school we were staying at. It was a boarding community college. The guys stayed in room twelve: The Pegasus, complete with 10 double-bunks, yellow walls, and 3 working fans. I was one of the lucky guys to nab one of the beds with a fan, and offered to switch with the guy above me (whom I'll call Brett) halfway through the week, but he said it was fine.

Awakening on Easter Sunday, we found that bugs, particularly gnats (which they call mosquitoes), love white people. Paul was eaten the most, and it was his birthday. I was blessed, it seems, and wasn't bitten by a gnat until my bug spray ran out on Wednesday night, and even then, was only bitten thrice. I did get a couple mosquito bites after that, but they were minor things. Everyone else, though, was just covered. Hime counted 40 on her right leg, and Minnie just as many on one ankle. Gratefully, they didn't itch. The next day, though, they ached. Hime was lucky, too, in that she's not allergic to bug bites and doesn't react like most of us do.

We had Easter service with the people for whom we were working. They held their church in a high school about ten minutes away from the community college in a dome structure. That too was a very different experience, and a lot of us (myself included) would say a more pure one. It was refreshing to worship with no thought of presentation. There was no power point or projector. The worship "band" consisted of Matthew, Everton's son, on the drums, a couple ladies huddling around a microphone, sometimes a keyboard, and the pastor just singing his heart out. We sang maybe five songs in about an hour, hour-and-a-half, of worship. We just kept singing the same verses and chorus over and over. It allowed us to focus on God a lot easier, I think, rather than wondering what the next song would be, and whether we'd like it, or how good the guitarist was.

The thing I remember most about the sermon made me laugh a bit on the inside. He was saying something about how God held the world in his hands, and how gravity was God holding things together, and same with atomic force. I'm not sure I'd say that. Sure I'd say that God invented gravity, thought up all science and mathematics (which I find so much more mind-boggling than the typical aspects of creation people appreciate), but I'm not thinking he's actively putting attention into holding each molecule together. Anyway, it sparked a thought. Last I heard, the Theory of Everything could explain everything except gravity. I just found that humorous.

A pastor from Washington, that I'll call Woody, went on the trip with us. He's one of the head people in an organization called Apex Ministries which helped organize this trip for us. He's an interesting guy, and he certainly has a lot to say. Sometime after lunch, still at the church/school, one of the girls asked one of the guys, "Is kissing better than talking?" Woody happened to be walking by and began spilling his wisdom upon the few gathered. More gathered, like myself, and soon pretty much the entire group was there for at least part of the time (some people began leaving as kids looked more interesting). He had a lot of good things to say, but the way he presented it irked me. One of the things was that he gave a definition of love that works in almost every case, but he presented it as the only definition, and specifically said that for it to be a good definition, it must work in all cases. If I love you then "You are more important than I am." So, me being me, before I accepted that definition, I was going to look at every possible way you could use the word love legally and make sure it made sense. The first one is pretty obvious, I think: "I love pizza." Woody argued that if you love pizza, then you're saying eating pizza is more important than yourself, and therefore you are willing to be unhealthy by eating it. I then asked him how one could love oneself. "I am more important than I am," somehow doesn't make sense to me. He argued, "My waistline is more important than my taste buds, so if I don't eat that pizza, then I'm loving myself." (It occurred to me later that the way he put it was "I love my waistline more than my tastebuds." I love myself should mean, "I, as a whole, am more important than I, as a whole, am," which really doesn't make sense.) I tried to press him a little further, saying that it didn't make sense, and he said that I just didn't want it to make sense. I pushed a little further, and he called me silly, and "of course, if you press a definition to the extremes, it doesn't make sense." I felt like Toby to Woody's Bartlett. "Now wait here, Mr. President. Didn't we just say that for a definition to be good, it has to work in all cases?" Unfortunately, I didn't say that. I was too flustered with being called silly which really distracted me from anything else he might have said that was important. I felt pretty alone until around dinner time, when there were whispers of getting together to talk about relationships after Woody went to sleep.

On Sunday night, we had our first team time, which quickly became known as t-squared, and just as quickly became my favorite part of the trip. Each night, we would spend about an hour speaking to two things: "What did you catch someone doing right?" and "How did you see God work today?" After about a (twenty-) five minute break, we'd reassemble and five or six of us each night would give a ten minute version of our testimony. I don't remember who it was, and if I did, you'd only get an alias anyway, so what are you complaining about?, but she said, "When we got to know the person, we liked them, but after they spoke, we loved them." That's the truth. A lot of people have had really hard parts of their lives, many are still going through those hard parts. It was just really encouraging to hear about the ways God works through all that stuff and about his and each other's faithfulness. After each testimony, two people prayed for that person.

At the end of our first team time, Woody went to bed, and a few of the guys gathered. We talked a bit about what Woody said about men needing to conquer women (I'm taking that way out of context, so don't freak out -- he did have somewhat of a valid point, though I disagree with most of it, as did most, if not all, of the guys on our team). Shortly thereafter, a girl joined us, and then a few more, and eventually all but two people (and Woody) had come. Even one of the security guards hired by the school came and listened for a while. I think it was a really good, productive talk that made us all think. There are a lot of different views on relationships, particularly within the Christian community. Mine tends to be a little more conservative, but not for the same reasons as conservative people, I think.

We showered (cold shower) and got into bed. A couple of the guys came in as I was starting to fall to sleep, each saying that they had been approached by the security guard who had listened to our forum. He was carrying on a perfectly normal, though rather deep for American small talk standards (as a lot of casual conversations in Jamaica are), conversation, and then he asked how much money we had. "I need $100 US before Wednesday, or I don't know what might happen." Some security, eh? It was somewhat straightened out, though. Jeff, the intern leader on our trip, talked to Lulu, and they talked to Pastor James. He told them to tell us that if the guard approached us again, to tell him that Pastor James is taking care of all our finances and if the guard needs money, to go talk to him. As far as I know, none of us talked to him again, at least not regarding money.

On Monday we had our first work day. We ran VBS for the church. They had told us about 100 kids and I think about 40-60 showed up. With 35 of us, there was a pretty good adult:child ratio. Hime has a real gift with kids, and occasionally she would send me out to talk to a kid who seemed to be having a hard day, or one that wasn't being paid much attention to. The lesson was on creation. Some of the kids that came were really not kids, but teens. We hadn't planned on this, and a group of us (not I) threw together an impromptu Bible study. That was really cool.

I had really enjoyed our forum the night before, so I wanted to see if we could get another one going on a different topic. During lunch or dinner I was talking to a couple girls and spiritual gifts came up. That's always a heated topic. Every time I discuss it, I change my view a little bit. Only a week or two earlier I completely changed the way I saw speaking in tongues because of a talk at CCF. I emailed the pastor who gave the talk hoping he could clarify a few questions I had, but he's not responded yet. (Turns out that it got lost in a stack of emails -- he did eventually respond during the two weeks it's taken to write this post.) I wonder if I sounded a little too eager and it came off as trying to back him into a corner. That was not my intent at all. I think I'll email him again here soon. Anyway, about a third of the group showed up to this talk. Somehow I was sort of designated the facilitator and the guy I probably got to know best on the trip, Bill, kept the discussion from getting too heated and made sure everyone could give their input. It, too, was a good talk, and I hope it made people think. Bill said it made him think, and I know it made Poppy think a bit as well. Speaking in tongues freaks a lot of people out. It used to freak me out too, but I think that comes from widespread misuse of it. I hope the talk shown a little light on the real purpose of it, and maybe some of the people benefitted from that.

There were four kids that hung out with us whenever we were at the college. Devante lived across the street, and Nyoka, Mario, and Kamar lived with their grandmother. I'm not sure why they were at the school. Maybe their grandmother works there. Anyway, Devante decided I was named Craig, and all week that's what the kids called me. In response, I started calling Devante Levante, to give it a sort of feminine ring to it. I didn't come up with the name. I think Poppy did, but Devante seemed to enjoy it when I called him Levante. At the end of the week, he eventually conceded that I was, indeed, named Jordan. A bunch of the other guys had nicknames too. Poppy was Fat Joe.

Tuesday was the first day we worked at the construction site. On the way to breakfast, Brett was singing The Wheels on the Bus. Something about it struck me, and I sketched this. He greatly appreciated it.

After being dropped off, we met a man named Brooks. He was a local pastor at another church who was just helping out. We circled up to listen to his instruction, and he led us in a worship song. That was something we were not at all expecting but it was good. The walls of the church were up and there was a wooden framework in various areas, particularly the ceiling. Our primary goal for the day was to level the ground within the walls so that the Colorado team (there was a group for Colorado university who came the same week -- neither team knew the other was going to come beforehand) could pour concrete the next day. That sounded to us like they wanted to pour on the ground, and so we were taking some care to make the floor as level as possible, even when Brooks changed his mind every half hour about which dirt needed to be moved where. It turns out, they didn't need it that level. They needed to put support beams (props) up to support the wooden ceiling so that the next three days, concrete could be poured for the ceiling.

It's been a little while since I've worked on this. I started writing the day after I first posted on this blog. Then I switched a few words to make it sound like I started writing on Friday, instead of Thursday. Now I won't even bother. It's a week and a half later.

On Wednesday, we did VBS again. It was pretty fun, about the same as Monday. We taught them Jonah and the Big Fish, and played a variation of Duck, Duck, Goose called Jonah, Jonah, Whale. That evening, (at least I think it was that evening) we went out on the town. A bunch of us ended up at Burger King. A couple people, though, ended up getting jerk, which is Jamaican BBQ. I heard later that when we were gathering for team time, Lulu said to one of the guys that got jerk that he needed to go to the meeting place, and he said he needed to finish eating. To which Lulu said, "You need to deal with your jerk on your own time." Later that night, when everyone was starting to get into bed (just the guys had this conversation), we spent maybe an hour doing Jerkfest '08 puns. The ladies of the church had organized a fund raiser for the church called Jerkfest, and we were to be the primary participants. It counted as our "night out" meal. The puns were all horribly inappropriate and yet amazing. It was a bonding experience, and even if it wasn't the most wholesome of topics, I still count it a Godly experience. After that, any time there could have been a potential "That's what she said moment," someone said "Jerkfest '08" instead.

Thursday, we poured cement. Thursday was probably my favorite day. I felt like the team worked the most like a single body that day, and I think the most got done. In Jamaica, getting it done isn't really the point. The work along the way was, and I feel like we did the most work. I wish America was more like Jamaica in that sense. In a lot of senses, but especially in that one. I think ambition might be ruining us. Anyway, on Thursday we formed the bucket line. We hefted cement in 3/4 full buckets over our heads and up to the roof to be poured. No one can figure out how we did it. I can't normally lift that weight, and certainly not multiple times for hours on end. And we didn't really stop. Everyone took breaks at some points in time, but there really weren't people just standing around. Even the people who weren't doing a lot of labor (there just wasn't room for us all on the scaffolding and roof) were running around getting people water. At one point, I was one of those people, and dinner was late in coming (or the bus was) so I went to my pack and produced a can of honey roasted peanuts and fed them to the team. I was a hero for a while. It wasn't anything big to me (the act wasn't) but I'm glad it boosted morale so well. Also, on Thursday night the Colorado team left, and halfway through the day, they joined us to work on the roof. They weren't so fast as us when they worked alone, only filling their buckets to about 2/5 full, and having a single-file bucket line, but they also didn't have as many people to work with. With the two groups together though, it was very quick.

Friday, I feel, did not go quite as well as Thursday. I know other people disagree. We were supposed to have half of us at VBS and half at the work site, but on Thursday night, the powers that be decided the church was a higher priority and had the whole group there. The problem was, a lot of the day, most of us weren't doing any laboring. We talked among ourselves, and a few of us worked, but a lot of the time we were waiting for a front loader to get there, or took a bunch of misdirections from Brooks or whoever else felt like telling us what to do. It took until 8pm or so, but we did finish the roof. By that time, a good 3/4 of the people weren't working, and there was no room for us on the roof to work.

Meanwhile, Jerkfest was being prepared for us, and after we finished working, we all ate quite well. They served us chicken feet soup and jerk chicken in a teriyaki take-out container. While some of us were waiting for our chicken (I don't like soup, so that was all I was waiting for), Woody was trying to get the attention of people only waiting for their soup, and kept asking, "Do you have your chicken?" To which we all answered, "No." Then he said, "Wrong answer. Do you all have your chicken?" Me, louder: "NO." He said, "Wrong answer." I asked, "Are you saying we should just say yes? Do you want us to lie? Are you encouraging us to sin?" I'd lost my patience. He finally corrected what he was saying, and said, "To those who are just waiting for soup, get in this line."

From Jerkfest we went to dinner. The ladies had prepared us food even though other ladies had given us our largest meal yet. We weren't hungry. A lot of people made valiant efforts to clean their plates, but most of us resigned to putting the food into our now-empty take-out containers. We hope the ladies never found out. I don't think they should, but I do think they would take it offensively. We kind of figure that when the Colorado team left, the women kept feeding us the same amount of food, but it was just divided up between fewer people, so there were heavier portions, and we'd kind of gotten used to not eating a whole lot, so a lot of food went to waste. A couple meals I passed up because I knew other people wouldn't want my left overs and I wasn't hungry.

That was a weird thing. I rarely got hungry on the trip. We all shared all of our food it seems, but everyone had their fair share at mealtimes. I just wasn't hungry, even after working all day. I'd usually eat the meat, and definitely drank whatever juice they gave us (seconds if I could find it), and the orange if there was one, but then I'd give the rest away, and I'd genuinely not be hungry. I count that a blessing, because I knew going would mean something would have to change in my taste bud habits.

Saturday was our day of play. We went to a beach, and it could not have been more pleasing to our senses. It was a beach the locals used, so it wasn't as well kept up as the tourist beaches, but it was true Jamaica, and that is so much better. The water was cool -- not warm like in Hawaii, but perfectly cool. It reminded me a bit of Shasta Lake on my senior trip with my youth group. A few of the girls had underwater digital cameras, a technology to which I had not yet been introduced. Only a few good shots, if any, were taken under water, but it was cool to get close ups of people playing in the ocean. The kids minus Devante went with us. Mario apparently has some money and was buying all sorts of things, like horse rides and renting boats. A few of the guys were launching people into the air and into the water. Mario got launched most often. He did some pretty spectacular stunts in the air. They launched me twice. The first time was amazing. I must have been 10 or 12 feet in the air. It reminded me of the time I was asked to demonstrate a volleyball block in PE in 8th grade. By sheer luck, I made this beautiful block on the kid's spike. I couldn't have done that twice if I tried. It just had the same feeling of being lucky that my weight and everything was just right, and the angle that they held me was right, so I could jump off their hands. I love it when small things like that happen. I just wish they were repeatable, but then, maybe I wouldn't appreciate them so much.

On Sunday, we got up with plenty of time before the bus was to arrive. We were supposed to have an early breakfast so that we could have Sunday School before the church service. The bus was two hours late, and none of us were surprised or in the least amount of angst. You just don't worry about time in Jamaica. Meanwhile, Justin pulled out his guitar, and we spent an hour and a half in worship. I wouldn't have chosen it another way. When we did get to the church, Woody spoke. It was themed around Jesus being the cornerstone of our lives. Again, he said good things, but the way he said it bothered me. I think I may be overly critical of him, because he's offended me a couple times. Still, even if he hadn't, I probably wouldn't choose to go to a church he pastored because of his speaking style. It's just not mine. Part of me wishes it were, so that I could more easily focus on what he's saying, rather than how he's saying it, but at the same time, there are pastors that I can listen to, nearly ceaselessly, so I'm glad he's able to talk to people who aren't me.

After brunch (what would have been breakfast, but was late in the afternoon, after church [which was postponed so that we could attend]), we all got in our busses and headed to church building. Numerous pictures were taken, and the few people who hadn't yet been on the roof they were building got to see the finished product. Then we prayed over and for the church.

That night, Jeff got the guys together. What he had planned would have been too hard to do with the whole group, so it was just the guys. Basically, we went around the room and just said what we appreciated about that guy during the week we spent with him. Honestly, I have never felt so loved in my life. I've never heard such nice things said about me. I've never been proud to be me, as I was that night. I wish I could have recorded it, so I could remember everything that was said. But then, maybe it's better that I didn't. There was something surreal to the experience, something that was perceived that probably wasn't tangible. Were I to listen to what was said again, out of the context of that meeting, it might have gone to my head. It was a self-esteem booster, not an ego booster. I only hope I blessed them as much as they blessed me that night. Poppy had had a doctor's appointment regarding a heart issue they had only recently discovered, and when we got back, would go in again to have it decided whether it was just a lump or if there were larger medical issues involved. We all laid hands on him and prayed at the end of our session.

We left quite early the next morning. There were supposed to be two busses. One got there fifteen minutes early and we all jumped out of bed and finished getting packed and ready to leave. The second, which would leave at the same time as the first, was quite a bit later. Some of us had slept (myself included), others had stayed up all night. It was about 4:30. I don't remember when we finally did leave. We stopped a couple times along the way. At one stop, I woke up a few seconds before we all got back on the bus. I have no idea what was of interest there. We stopped for some souvenirs a little later. I lacked money at this point, plus I didn't see anything that I really wanted. Mostly I just escorted girls around. (We had a rule that for every group of girls, there had to be at least one guy.)

Now at the airport, we had a little time to eat. About eight of us chose a restaurant and all ordered. Sometime between ordering and getting our food, I felt like I should do something. So I said, "Hey, so I've got an idea, and you're all going to argue with me, and then I'm going to win." This raised a few eyebrows. "I'm going to pay for all of your food, and you guys will pick up the tips." They argued. I won.

The flight wasn't too bad. I read about a third of Ender's Game, which Missy had lent me. I had tried to read it on the beach, but a Jamaican lady told me I couldn't come to Jamaica and read, so I put it away. She was playful when she said it, but serious all the same. I slept a bit, too, on the flight.

When we got back to SeaTac, we all headed to baggage claim. My grandpa came by and gave me my laptop and Easter Basket that my mom had given me at my celebratory dinner eleven days prior. Four guys and myself were driven to Brett's parents' house by his parents, where we ate a bit, and then were off to Western. I drove with Paul in his car. The other three guys drove in another car that was cold enough it had troubles starting, and we waited until they got it running before leaving. Paul was getting sleepy and about 45 minutes before getting back, he asked if I would drive. I've never fallen asleep at the wheel, but let me tell you, it was hard to keep my eyes open those last fifteen minutes. I had to bite my tongue, so that the pain would keep me alert. I really should have pulled over and slept for twenty minutes, but we made it back safely.

On Tuesday night, we had dinner as a group before the INN. After that, I think we basically decided to do it every week for the rest of the year. We're a good group. One of the girls whose meal I paid for in the airport came up to me and told me something. She's a nanny and had bought an expensive camera right before leaving. She had deposited her last pay check expecting to use it as her spending money on the trip. While she was on the trip, the check bounced, and had she paid for dinner that night, she would have overdrafted and been charged a $50 fee. I just found that great how that worked out. Tuesday was also the first day of classes. After my math class, I had a three hour break and so was heading back to my room to have lunch. On the way back, I saw the prof teaching Database Theory heading to his class, and on a whim, decided to audit the class for a day, and then join it. So much for my easy, 12-credit quarter.

On Wednesday night, my senior project group (Tonics, Lolbot, Curly, and I), got together at Applebee's to discuss possible project ideas. Lolbot suggested a cellphone app that could take a picture of a barcode for a product, talk to a server, and find out if there are any nearby better deals on the same product. It was a cool idea, and we decided to use it. Then we had to think of a name. Applesauce had been a code word for "[Lolbot] didn't actually say this," in a joke with one of the other CS guys who was trying to contract us into a subgroup of his senior project. And thus, Applesauce became our project name. Over the next few days, Curly and Lolbot experimented with various phone cameras and came to the conclusion that the images produced weren't high enough quality for the barcode scanner, and that basically ruined our idea, but we tweaked it a bit, and now have a new project that still has to do with servers and cell phones. I'm not entirely sure what all the details are, but basically it's a stalking tool that's a mix of Outlook, Facebook, and Google Maps. Imagine the possibilities. Applesauce.

On Friday night, Lolbot drove me to Renton, and my mom picked me up from there. We went to the mall, and I got new shoes, a Macbook carrying case, and a couple shirts. It was my mom's birthday on Sunday, so I went home.

It turns out that Tonics was a bit ill on Wednesday night, and Lolbot and I both caught her plague. So on Saturday, I laid around pretty much all day, with a headache, a stomach ache, a sore throat, and worst of all, a body ache that basically kept me from moving. That night, my mom's cousin (my off-and-on boss) took us out to dinner in Tacoma. It was a pretty loud place, but it had big portions of good food. I people watched a little bit. There was a couple across the plant barrier that were on a date, probably a first or second one. They were two of the most physically beautiful people I've seen. He had perfectly messy hair, and she had a very soft face. Anyway, he was tanking. It seemed to me like he kept talking and the more he talked, the less she agreed with him, but he didn't seem to notice. She politely stared at him as he rambled on and on, but I think she was starting to get angry. I found it amusing.

On Sunday, I was feeling much better. The body ache had gone. Jack threw a small birthday party for my mom after church. I guess some of our family friends that I'd heard got divorced only got separated and, at least for the time being, aren't planning on getting divorced. I found that a little encouraging at least.

From the party, we drove back to Renton where Lolbot picked me up and we drove back to Bellingham. He was a day behind me in the sickness and was aching all over while driving, though I couldn't tell by the way he drove. I missed Bible study (I knew I would before I left the party), so I was a little bummed.

On Monday and Tuesday I was sick. Very sick. I missed all my classes. On Tuesday, I developed a fever so bad that I actually went to the health center. They took one look and put be me first in line to be seen by a nurse. That evening, I thought I was feeling better and was trying to decide whether to go to the pre-INN dinner or not. I'm glad I didn't, because my fever came back shortly after it began. Between the dinner and the INN, about twelve of the people on my trip came and visited me. I felt very loved. A few of them commented later that my roommates seemed overwhelmed at so many people.

On Wednesday, I went to most of my classes. We met with Reedy for senior project, and I had Database Theory. I had compiler theory, too, but at that point I was again not feeling great and also planning on dropping the class. Because I'm taking databases, I don't actually need compilers. That night, I got an email from the prof saying, "Please go to the health center and get a note so that I can give you more time on the homework." Then I had one of those "ohhh" moments. That was nice of him. So, then I felt bad about dropping the class, but still felt like I should, so I talked to Julie about it. She thought I should too, and told me how to go about talking to the prof, making sure that I wouldn't offend him or anything. I talked to him, and he said he didn't really care when people dropped his classes, unless half the class drops, but that he had been hoping to help me get caught up. "Ohhh." So I kept the class. He pushed back a couple due dates for me, and so far I'm on schedule.

That night we had a mission trip post-trip team meeting at Lulu's house. It was more of a potluck and less of a meeting, though we did get in a circle and fill out an exit survey about our experiences on the trip. I found out that Poppy had gone to the doctor. They said there was no trace of what had been there before and that they had no explanation. If that's not proof that prayer works, I don't know what is. I'd also been praying that Swood would find a job, and Boeing gave him an offer. I'm pretty stoked about that.

Classes are going well now. Math is my fun class. Databases is going a whole lot better than I anticipated. The prof is known for getting up in front of the class and doing proofs as his method of teaching, but he's yet to do one, and I'm learning a lot. Senior project is not really a class. I've not done any real work on it yet, but that's mostly because we don't have a server yet, and I'm the database go-to guy on our team. Compiler theory isn't as awesome as I hoped it would be, but still a worth-while class. I can still drop it if I want to, but I'll have to take my first and only W on my transcript. A single W doesn't really matter, but I think it would still bother me.

Donna and I talked at the INN tonight. I had been talking to Marvel about CS stuff, so when she came over, we kept talking about CS. She, being a Poli-Sci person probably had little to no interest in CS, but she kept listening. I tried to change the subject a few times, but didn't really succeed, until we started talking about the West Wing. She's finished her 7 seasons and had begun to watch again with her friend. Then we started talking about Studio 60, and Hime pushed me out the door.

Just let me say one last important thing. I am seriously considering getting a dog. Dang, and still 200 words shy of my longest post.