The Weekend after Welcome Month (8/24/08-8/25/08)

So Saturday finally came after Welcome Week. It was slightly a relief, slightly because I couldn't sleep in on Saturday morning. I had a ministry retreat. 

I got up at 8ish and started to get ready. My roommate was gone for the weekend, so it was nice to make noise for once when getting dressed. I got dressed and headed downstairs to the ministry office. Claire Bain and Don Markovitch were down in the lobby with Fr. Mathew. There were several familiar faces along with several new ones. There was the awkward small talk followed by the awkward laughter that accompanies bad-awkward-small-talk-I-don't-know-you jokes. Well, we, when united, left for the St. Francis chapel, not really a retreat in my mind, but it was doing something new, (not that new was a new thing in welcome month!) We walked into the chapel and proceeded to make small talk, not that small talk was not overdone by this point. In all truthfulness, I am being a little harsh. We gathered into a circle and received handouts that detailed our retreat, all seven hours of it. The focus of the meeting was to look at our strengths and talents, those highlighted by the StrengthsFinder book, in the light of God's plan for our lives. 

The meeting began formerly with the usual: stand up and introduce yourself and tell us your favorite food. Then we heard Don give an introduction into the strengths that he had as an example that we were to follow. The papers we had had an opening prayer, (a concept new to me, seeing as prayers are general a spontaneous exposition to God about certain topics) followed by several questions which we were to ponder. These "reflection" questions became a focus of our meetings. Don, Claire, and Jean read some of the questions and a portion of Scripture that talked about gifts, then set us loose to ponder the questions. We were to meet fifteen minutes later to discuss our answers.

These questions were pretty much about how we viewed our futures and where we saw ourselves in the future. I had read the questions during the preliminary portion of our meeting, so I was in for fifteen minutes of boredom. These minutes were not total boredom, though. I prayed that God would let me shine as a light in that meeting, so as to demonstrate that Christ saves through faith and that our own works do not earn us salvation. That was the major conflict point that I was trying to get across. It became overwhelming to me that the sole point of our gifts was that God gave them to us, and that since they were given to us, we were use them to the best of our abilities so we can do good works. There was a lot of "me" in the vision that they were trying to get through to us. That it was all about my good works. Whatever. Well we reflected, then came back to talk about what we learned from reflection. 

We talked, then began our next part. It was about our strengths. My strengths were: Competition, Strategy, Input, Belief, and Connectedness. We told what our strengths were and began the next reflection theme, goody. I guess that's a little critical again. I did get to pray, a lot. We talked again, and closed in read prayer again. Then we went to lunch, then came back, read prayer, "reflected", then discussed. I was getting good at "connecting" my "beliefs" into exact words, that defined my feelings. It was interesting, though, that my "good" analogies were not my analogies, but were from Paul. I would read through scripture and find passages that supported the concepts that we were discussing. 1 Peter provided me with references to "living bricks" that supported the concept that we were to use our gifts to become the body of Christ, the Church. It was interesting to be praised for being Peter.... All in all, it was a good meeting. A little long, but the concepts were good enough to define my future plans in light of the talents that God has given me.

Sunday brought a relief, Baptist Doctrine! I had to get up early, again. It was good, though, because I got to hear Truth from God's Word. The message was not exactly encouraging, mostly highlighting the Romans 8:28 adage "All things work together for the good to them that love God, to them that are called according to His purposes." Now, I have used that concept in encouraging others in their tragedies and pain. Saying, "It will be alright, God's hand is in all of this, it works out for the good." I guess that's wrong. The verse says "for the good to them," not, "for the good." It basically meant that God is using problems and pain to mold "our" good not good. I tell people it will be "alright" but cannot justify that due to the fact that the person's good may or may not leave them feeling "alright". Our good is like parents disciplining us to help shape us for adulthood. A good swat on the can can save us from the slam of prison cell doors when adults. A sore seat doesn't feel "good" and doesn't seem "alright" at the time, but we become "good" and are "alright" later in life. I learned what advice to give in the future. 

The night service highlighted the the jealousy of Joseph's brothers and the selling of Joseph into slavery. There was a twist, as usual with Dan, that talked about how screwed up Joseph's family was, and how it was not a surprise that Joseph had an ego problem that Jacob played favorites. The fact that Joseph was sold into slavery became a defining moment that worked out for "his" good. It was a "good" Sunday after all. It was also a good way to end/begin a new week.

Welcome Week/Month (8/19/08-8/22/08)

So, Welcome Week. The busiest week of my life. The sheer amount of activities were both fun and daunting at the same time, a new activity every night/day/whenever they wanted to have one. Tuesday marked the Athletic Convocation activity, which also marked my first Marching Band performance.

Monday, we were to have learned the Fight Song, mainly for the purpose that we were going to play it Tuesday night! We were also given some other music with the likes of "The Final Countdown" and others to look over. We had our first Wind Ensemble rehearsal at 4:30, ended at 6, and we had to be back at the music building by 6:15. So after an hour and a half of playing, I got a fifteen minute break, then I needed to switch instruments and play for another hour maybe, then needed to play again at the Convocation. Needless to say, my lips were a little sore.

Well, once the practice was over, all of the band got their instruments, music, and stands and began the long hike over to the PE Center. When we arrived, we were greeted with the bleachers full of student-athletes, mostly with the same dull, I'm-breathing-is-that-not-enough-for-you look that I had seen in Bio. The sports director tried to rile the crowd up, but really to no avail. No one REALLY wanted to be there anyway. So, it fell on the band to resuscitate a dead horse.... We played the Fight Song and the other selections we had brought, the drum line went to task doing a really impressive job. Then came knockout.

The coordinators had the brilliant idea of having one athlete from all the girl's teams come play knockout. The game dragged, but once a winner was crowned, the next round came, the men's teams. Now, during all of the these games, the drumline played their stuff; again, and again, and again, and again. The men's knockout game last forever. I'm exaggerating, but I think that infinity was a little jealous. If that wasn't enough, they did a mixed knockout, made an even bigger line of competitors, and managed to raise boredom to a new level.

With the Convocation over, I realized that I had not had dinner, a fact that was completely unavoidable due to the several hours spent in the Music Building. In retrospect, I really didn't like the Convocation.

Wednesday brought another early morning, culminating in a discussion of stereotyping in English Comp. Wednesday also brought Small Groups.

I arrived at Small Groups exhausted, I hadn't been sleeping well. I regaled my brothers and sisters of my experiences so far that week, even talking about mass, an event that proved that I am a very unorthodox Catholic! We talked about priorities, mostly in reference to the Church. It was a challenge to me to keep the Church my priority during my tenure at college, an institution notorious for kids who leave the church behind for good. I came home very late.

Thursday brought my Bio Lab, a class I almost missed. I had made it a routine to eat with Amy and her roommate Jennifer before Bio, but I had assumed that the Bio Lab fell on the same time as my Chem Lab did, at 1:30. Arriving in the cafeteria, I texted Amy to ask if she was there yet, she said that she had already eaten. I got my food and began to walk to a seat at 12:20. On my way, I ran into Amy, who asked me what I was doing eating. I informed her that I had Bio at 1:30, so I had plenty of time. She informed me that I had Bio at 12:30, so I needed to book it to my room to get my books. That was cruddy. I ran up to my room, apple, banana, and ham 'n cheese in hand and mouth. I grabbed my books, knocked my apple on the floor, and flew down the stairs, Amy hot on my heels. I arrived at lab with food in hand, a big no no. I had five minutes, so I started stuffing my face, not a glorious sight. Amy doesn't eat very quickly at all, so she was amazed at my ability to consume all my food in that very short amount of time. We ended up taking a test to see where we stood in the Bio department in general. I took it as a challenge, Amy saying that if I tested out of the class, we wouldn't be friends any more.

Wind Ensemble brought about another round with Huapango, a Mexican dance piece that is really challenging and fast. I love it....

After Wind Ensemble, I ate dinner, and got ready to go to ApeX Ministries. ApeX Ministries consists of two guys who do juggling, whip-cracking, and straight-jacket-escaping. They also tried to bring some ministry into it, but, to my dismay, they are a Catholic Ministry team. That basically means no ministry involved, but a lot of juggling.

Friday brought about yet another early morning and more music in MB. After Eng Comp, I drove to Lebanon to meet my mom at the bank to apply for a debit card. It was too easy a process, I finished before my mom got there, so I decided to head to Arni's. Arni's was deserted at the time as it was 3:40, but I managed to catch up with Rodney my manager and get a breadstick fix. I drove back to the bank to meet my mom, and caught up with her. Once I was finished, I headed back to Marian, to do what I had been waiting for all week, laser tag.

Laser tag. I arrived back to find that just south of the fountain was a speedball field, awesome. I changed into some camo, not necessarily effective cover in the black and yellow inflatable cover, but it made me feel like a stud....

I arrived at a tent set up for signing in. I commenced with the signing and received a gun. Now these guns were former military issue and were $1,400 a pop, double awesome. They were basically a big brick of black painted metal. It had a pistol grip, a laser dot scope, and a Tapco adjustable stock. There was a wire running from the gun to a headband with sensors. These rifles when fired made a rifle firing noise as well as casings hitting the ground, triple awesome. 

Well, we went out onto the field, alpha vs. bravo. We got beaten, but it was awesome. It felt like speedball without the pain. Well with the first game down, I needed a strategy. I ended getting back in line and got saddled with bravo team, a saddling that I would not regret. 

With the six players on our team loaded into the game, I ran for the far northeast corner of the field, (The field was a square with large inflatables at all corners and smaller ones connecting the larger ones to each other. The field was probably 50x50 ft.) With my position, I was able to survey the opposition in its entirety, an advantage that would prove advantageous later on in the game. With the stock extended and in my shoulder and my eye focusing on the red dot, I waited for the megaphone squawk that was to be the starting bell. With these guns, five hits meant a "kill" followed by a ten second respawn time. One had three "kills" before he became "dead and buried". So the goal was to avoid getting hit in the head or gun, moving if you heard the sound of someone getting shot coming from your own gun. If you were unfortunate enough to get hit five times your gun would shout, "Ahhh! Get a medic!" Not a good sentence.

With these things in mind, I took it upon myself to be a pseudo-sniper, using the scope to pick off the alpha members foolish enough to stick there heads up. We ended up clearing all but one member with no casualties on our end throughout the game. The unfortunate alpha team member was pincered in between our fire. We won. Since we won, we had the privilege of staying on the field to challenge the next alpha squad.

We dominated. We had about eight straight victories, silencing critics, until the ref decided we were to good and made us give up our guns. We stayed together though, and once the red team won, we were there to claim the blue headbands of bravo team. We would win five or so in a row then give up the blue, only to get it again later. We were finally beaten after 18 or 19 in a row. It was sad. But every time after that, when we were together, we were unstoppable. I would get my corner bunker and pick off everyone in range. We sometimes switched sides, moving me to the southwest corner. When in the southwest corner, I was able to run through the crowd, flank the opposition, and get two to three kills before being killed. I used this tactic several times to success in all attempts. One time, I took out all of the other team, getting the third kill to bury the four I shot. 

I played for four hours straight, getting very sweaty and tired. Once done, I ran back to take a shower and get ready to go to Steak 'n Shake with Amy, Jennifer, Toby, and Loralee. When we got there, we got orders and watched as Cardinal Ritter High School students fresh from a football game came in. We made fun of them, talking about the things that they thought important now that would not be important later.

We got back after midnight, but that happened to be one of the best ways to end one of the craziest weeks I've ever had. Talking with people about the week revealed what I felt, that the week seemed a month.

Beginnings (8/18/08)

Today marked the official beginning of classes at Marian. I started early, at 6:00. The alarm sounded too early, waking me from a dream filled with Zombies that I needed to kill with a nail gun. I could hit them in the head with my fists or with a nail in my hand, but it wouldn't penetrate. Only with a nail gun could the dead walkers die, again.... I woke up after the dream, 5ish, and went back to sleep. The thing about zombies is that the human pool always dwindles to a shorter and shorter supply until there is only one person left. Anyway, I got up from my warm bed, climbed down, got my shower supplies, and went to the door. I underestimated the darkness of my room. As the door opened, I was met by the blinding lights of the hall. Squinting, I went to the shower room.

I got back and got all my stuff ready for my first class, Marching Band. I packed two notebooks, my algebra book, study book, binder, and laptop into my backpack. With a mellophone in one hand and a vitamin water in the other, I headed to Marching Band. I also underestimated the distance needed to get to the Music Building. Two minutes late, I walked into an already starting class. I pulled out the music and mellophone and sat down. 

We stretched and breathed for a half and hour, then got our instruments. After a few tuning notes, we went outside. Once outside Prof. Velez walked out with a portable speaker and a tuner, starting us off with the fight song.

The fight song was a challenge. I had not yet memorized it, so it proved to be a challenge when we turned the stands around. The playing of the mellophone proved to be a challenge too. Proper positioning requires a ten degree angle up from the body. Now that angle meant that one is not physically able to look through the instrument at the music. We played the fight song and we played the fight song again and after that we played the fight song again. There was music for a second verse, but Prof. Velez decided that we were to sing the song that second time through, a fact that we had not expected. So band turned out to be a memory game. About five till 9, we went back in. I got a polo and a water bottle and left for the long haul to Chemistry that would take more than five minutes to do.

So I made it to class to find the room full and Dr. Macrae already talking. With mellophone, shirt, and water bottle in hand, I took my seat in the back. I slung off the thousand pound backpack and rested. My body was seriously needing energy with no breakfast and a very meager dinner the night before. I made it through the syllabus and took a small quiz to test my knowledge of Chemistry. I grabbed all my gear and tried to squeeze through the door to get to College Algebra. 

Now, Mr. Gasper was a very interesting individual. Rather short, slender, and in his mid to late 60s. He was a nice guy, but like I said about a thousand times, "He could put rocks to sleep."

Then came lunch, awesome for the sheer fact that it meant some kind of food. Better because it meant that I could get some energy for the day! I met Amy Bueno, a girl who happens to be in my Chemistry Class and Biology Class, (Bio will come later).

True to my word, Bio came soon after. It is held in a lecture hall and is my largest class. Dr. Stumpf is an interesting person. He seems to like to throw out puns and jokes for people to get, but the problem was that Amy and I were the only ones laughing! The others seemed lulled into a sense of total apathy, barely registering any signs of life apart from the occasional sigh.

After Bio, I had an hour to kill prior to English Composition. I chose to practice my instrument like all good students do, and got on Facebook.... I went to English Comp. and was surprised by the fact that my teacher reminded me a little of Mrs. Rust, my 11th grade English teacher. She will probably be a fun teacher to have because I like to write and we're going to be writing on topics that are relevant for today. 

That evening I went to a BBQ, the food was good, and free. I had nothing to do for the evening, so that officially ended my first full day of school.

*note: Future entries will more likely be general in nature, taking up several days of time. (Not that you wouldn't mind....)

Mishaps and Inventions (8/17/08)

So today, I started early. I woke up at 8 something and began to get ready for church. My fauxhawk was a little askew as I got into the car, probably evidence of my sleepiness. As I was about to shut the door, I heard a buzzing sound. Once the door was closed, I noticed a sapphire blue, inch and a half long dragonfly that had joined me. Of course, it decided to try to exit from the back window, which is solid glass. I opened my windows and tried to usher the insect to freedom, and finally it decided that freedom was better than the headache that was coming due to the constant banging on the glass. Once emancipation had occurred, I headed for home.

I got home to find my dad getting ready for church. We talked about my first two days and I informed him that I had missed dinner the night before. He suggested cereal and I took the suggestion. With multi-grain cherios becoming energy, I began to feel a little more alert, but not much. I headed to church with Johnny in the driver seat. We pulled into the parking lot, the usual 2-3 minutes late.

Church began as it usually did: walk in, get bulletin, talk/shake hands with a few friends, and settle in to a pew just shy of the front. We sang a song, then took offering, then sang "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" and "Arise My Soul Arise", then began the usual hand shaking ritual. I talked to people about my first two days of college and how I was getting settled in, the usual stuff. We sat down again and Pastor Dan began his sermon.

The series that we were doing was about suffering, so today talked about why there is suffering in the world. He preached out of Romans 8:18-23, about how we suffer due to our own sin, and suffer with the knowledge that God has something planned that is infinitely better than our suffering. He talked about all the evil in the world, child molesting being posted on the internet, children being sold as sex slaves, millions dying in tsunamis, and other horrible tragedies that arise from our own evil. Our evil causes us to destroy all we touch, to kill each other, and made Jesus Christ come to die. He, Jesus, partook in our suffering, proving that He was a God that wouldn't just talk about suffering while sitting in perfect contentment while man suffered. It was a disturbing and beautiful representation of God's love and His hatred of suffering. Pastor talked about his son. He talked about how much he hated the fact that his son had Autism, hated that his son couldn't understand him, hated that his son saw everything but him. He said that that needs to be the way we need to view our belittlement of God. Jesus suffered the most that anyone ever suffered, so we need to view Him in that light.

Well, after church was done, I talked to a few more people about my coming journey into college and about what I was going to do over the next few weeks. Then Johnny and my dad went to the gas station to fill up. Home followed, followed by the Olympics, followed by my mom coming home, and followed by biscuits and gravy. After brunch, I made a mental list of what else I needed for my room, a chair other than the desk chair, a larger trash can, a dowel rod to hang my towel up with, and various other items. My dad and I got into the car and headed for Walmart.

Once at Walmart, we threaded through the hicks to find a hand towel. The hand towel was easy enough to find, but we needed other things. I got some double stick adhesive and some hangers, and got a bumper for our sailboat. I even got a lawn chair that I am going to have a cushion tailored to fit.  We were going to get a wastebasket too, but that proved to be a challenge. The lady in lawn and garden said that the baskets were in the office section, wrong. We looked everywhere, no waste-baskets. Finally we found some, and I got one. We tried to find a basket for my shampoo and body wash, but no dice. We checked out and left, obviously. 

When I got home, I remembered the dinner that I was going to need to attend for Marching Band. My dad was staining the dowel rod for my towel and suggested that I check my email. I tried, I really did. I got on the computer, went to the bookmark for Marian email, but the page didn't load, at all. I decided that it was time to leave, so I left my clothes that I had brought home and rationalized that I would get them sometime the coming week. I booked it to Marian, parked at Clare, went upstairs, got on my laptop, went to the Marian email (which loaded), and clicked on the email that detailed the dinner. My heart sank, I was fifteen minutes late. The email said the group was departing at 5:45 sharp, I had arrived at Marian at 6:00 sharp. The dinner was mandatory, but not for me I guess.... I decided that I should settle for cafeteria food.

I walked downstairs and got some peas and noodles and decided to sit with a group of upperclassmen, one of which is an RA on my floor. I sat next to Corrine, who was very friendly and asked me how I got to Marian, bad idea, but a good idea at the same time. I told my story, careful to emphasize the Divine intervention that was key to my arrival, and finished with the same emphasis. I tried to engage the Sophomores in their conversation, but didn't know what to say (considering I had never been to Marian before). At least there was a new student, though he was a transfer and a sophomore, he managed to keep me from being the only Marian newbie in the conversation. I headed back upstairs after the conversation became "heated" and began to write on the blog.

I was finished for the time being on the blog, and knew that there was a meeting or something for my floor. I talked with Dan for the first real time, seeing as his girlfriend had left, so the times were a little less boring. Dan and I went downstairs to check out the meeting and found no one. Confused, we headed back upstairs and ran into Reid, our RA, talking to some people in the hallway. After an inquiry as to the location of the meeting, Reid said that they were for the upperclassmen that had moved in in the morning. Faced with nothing to do due to the lack of a scheduled activity, I decided to get to know some of the guys on my floor. I tried to keep up with the conversation in the hall, but eventually it moved due to people leaving. I walked a few feet down the hall to my dorm and went inside. A minute later, maybe, Luke Leichte came in to talk and to check out our digs, commenting on the spaciousness especially. I was indifferent, but then we got more visitors, a couple of girls from the second floor. Shortly after, another guy named Ronnie from down the hall came and the crowd became a party of sorts. Luke spotted my guitar and began to pluck out a few chords. I adjusted the gain and volume to a level sufficient enough not to disturb the neighbors, but was then given the guitar back to me and asked to play something. I strummed a few chords as well, and then put it up.

Luke and the girls left, but Ronnie stayed to show us some fireworks thing on the internet, then talked about his year last year. He left, and both Dan and I decided to call it a night, knowing that in the morning I needed to get up at 6.

Comedy team (8/16/08)

So tonight, I was feeling kinda bored. My room mate had soccer practice and then went to dinner with his girlfriend, so the five total minutes that I saw him didn't stem the tide of nothing-to-do that was washing over me. I got on the internet and checked out Facebook, which led to a site about people failing at life. I was originally on the internet to kill some time before dinner, which I thought started at 7:00. Well, 7:30 rolled around and I decided to head down for some sustenance. Upon entering the hallway that led to the dining room, I noticed a distinct lack of students occupying the cafeteria and a distinct lack of food occupying the trays and containers. In my dismay, and in hunger, I trudged back up the stairs to my room, bored and hungry now. There was nothing else to do so I decided that I should probably walk over to Doyle and see if there was anyone that I could talk to. To my surprise, the door was locked to the lobby, someone had to let me in, but I made it in anyway. Now this dorm was a very big difference from the ghost town that I had just left. There were people for one, and they were doing something, be it watching the Olympics or playing pool. So I decided to sit down and watch the Women's Marathon, not the most entertaining of sports. That was trivial, because I actually got conversation, a thing that had been lacking previously. I talked to people, introduced myself, and eventually found myself talking to a girl that I had been taking the siding off with and a guy that is playing in Marching Band with me. That conversation led to a small group that was heading over to the library to watch an indie comedy group called the Late Night Players. 

Now the Late Night Players were a trio from Boston made up of Seth, Aaron, and Zach. They were very funny and entertained is with skits, slides, and some songs about our very school. They entertained us for maybe a few hours and then we disbanded. I managed to get a signed poster and a t-shirt from their merchandise stand. I headed back to my dorm and started watching the Olympics.

Now tonight was a special night. A historic night. It was the night that Michael Phelps made history, winning more gold medals in a single Olympics than anyone else in history. There was also a race in which Dara Torres won a silver medal, she's 41, and where the women's relay won a silver medal. I talked on Facebook for a while and eventually decided to go to bed, there was church the next morning.

New Student Day of Service (8/16/08)

So today, we went to do a service project with the Rebuild The Walls organization (RWO). We left early, 8:30ish and proceeded to the neighborhoods around Marian. The neighborhood we came to was not the most ritzy by any standard, but our project was to strip a house down so that it could be rebuilt as an affordable home for a low income family. When we got there we were wearing our Marian Service Day shirts, which were very white and very clean. About five minutes into our stay, an old jeep pulled up and the man inside asked, "Is this where the free turkey's are at?" We sort of gaped, but he laughed and pulled up to the curb, smiling all the way. His name was Antonio, and he was a plumber by trade, but had been hired full time to serve the RWO as a general construction hand. He reminded me of Xzibit, but that's neither here nor there. He started out telling us about the project and about the history of the organization. When he was done with describing our tasks for the day, he sent us off to do our tasks.

Now the house was a wreck already, a wrecking crew previously had started the demolition, so I guess we had our work cut out for us. A man and his son came in a pickup with various tools of destruction, sledge-hammers, 6 or 7 crowbars, pry bars, hammers, and other such implements. The house was a duplex, or had been at one time. It had "brick" siding that was basically cardboard, and devoid of walls on the interior. To start the process, Antonio removed the plywood boards that covered the windows and doors and set us loose.

I grabbed a crowbar and set in on the task of removing the siding, a task that would prove slightly difficult. The siding was soft enough that the nails would remain in the wood underneath, causing the siding to fragment and not come off cleanly. That little problem made removing the siding off the entire north side a little annoying and problematic, but not too bad, I'm not negative. Anyway, throughout the process the blue/grey under wood was becoming more visible and the pieces of existing siding were slowly beginning to pile up. After we had moved to the far northwest corner, I became slightly frustrated with the unwillingness of the siding to relinquish its position, so I proceeded to bash it with the crowbar until there was enough of an opening that I could force said bar between and pry. In my frustration, I punched a few holes in the wood underneath, oops. After I had enough of the siding, I proceeded into the building proper to offer my services.

Once inside, I saw what I had heard from outside. The workers inside had been working to remove the cross-slat pieces of wood that connected the studs. They were working with sledgehammers, pry-bars, and their own hands to sufficiently remove any trace of any obstruction they came across. I obtained a mask and some goggles and proceeded to work out any frustration that I had left in me on those unfortunate slats. As the bodies, I mean, wood scraps began piling up, I was to be on the cleaning detail, sweeping and bagging of wood and plaster. As I was walking over to get a shovel I noticed that a piece of wood was stuck to my shoe. That was odd, so I bent down to pull it off. To my surprise there was a nail smiling back at me. I was glad I hadn't worn my Pumas today! Lunch time came soon after, but not soon enough to stop us from pulling down the roof of the veranda. That was a very fun, but very sooty experience. 

I guess that there had been a fire in the history of the abode, leaving black soot everywhere. So when one would pull a 2x2 board down whatever soot was on top would find its way into your shirt and basically any other place on your body that it could land on. I was black, and the gloves that had protected my hands, wool gloves, had done a good job of absorbing and distributing all the soot on the inside of the siding onto my palms and fingers. 

The bus arrived and we departed for a spread that was provided by a local caterer. My team was yellow team, and we joined the other groups in a small lot a couple blocks away. I don't know what the other teams were doing but we were certainly the dirtiest and sootiest. My hands were solid black and my arms had tiny chunks of charcoal coating them. We went to the nearest house and proceeded to line up for a hand washing. The line was so long that we had enough people to do the wave! Since our group was taking so long to wash, the other groups got to line up for food before us. That was cruddy. The food was good, probably extra good because of the work effort prior. The hamburger I had was very good. After we had eaten, the founder of RWO began his testimony, a crack addict saved from his addiction with no withdrawals turned community activist for Christ.

He told us about the community and about the fact that the USA is the only country that concentrates its poor in the middle of the city and puts its wealthy in the suburbs. He talked more about the RWO's mission to make home owning a reachable goal and pushing for inner-city communities to join together and help each other.  We thought we were going to go back and work for another hour and a half after lunch, but due to a mix up, we only really had fifteen minutes to re-board back up the house. When we arrived, there was a group effort to round up tools and the like and move the plywood to the appropriate windows and doorways. The boarding up went well in the beginning, but due to the drills battery dying, came to a hard point. That was until another drill arrived, so with the boards back up, the tools safe, and us exhausted, we left for home. On the way home the chatter was better, proof maybe of our getting to know each other better, but when someone started "Bohemian Rhapsody" it really became fun. The whole bus it seemed was screaming "Scaramouch, Scaramouch will you do the fandango?" It only ended because the song was over and we had arrived back at Marian, our shirts no longer clean or white. We were tired but had felt we had really accomplished something, the only problem was the fact that I had to walk all the way back to Clare.