It’s been a bizarre couple of weeks for me with all of the changes. I feel as though I began a whole new semester or something! The weather has been warm and beautiful (except for a couple days when we had a huge storm and cold front come through. Lightning, hail, torrential downpour… you get the picture).
Working at the Daytona 500 was quite an experience! There was a truck race with a fiery crash during the first couple hours. It was nice getting to see a live race without seriously damaging my hearing! 🙂 My friend and I did pretty well until about 5am… then we started getting cranky, delusional, and bored beyond all belief. A huge fog settled in as well, so it got chilly. We ended up canceling our second all-night shift. It was just too much! Most of the 13 hours were spent chatting with random drunk people about all kinds of things. I don’t exactly approve of their lifestyle, but some of the people were very nice and even fed us or gave us free stuff. What a memory! If that wasn’t enough, we were excited by a surprise visit from our friend interning at NASA in Virginia this semester. He came down for the weekend. It was nice to sleep most of Saturday until worship practice before CFC. After the session, our visiting buddy suggested several of us go see Jumper at Ocean Walk. So, we did. I enjoyed just getting out and hanging with everyone. It was a little weird being the only girl, but at Riddle, you get used to it.
We all knew we were in for a letdown when the opening scene showed Hayden Christensen. Personally, I enjoyed the movie and thought his acting was infinitely better than Star Wars, but of course the guys did nothing but complain about it afterwards. I hate it when people do that. After all, it’s their own fault they didn’t research who was in the movie BEFORE they paid the seven bucks! Whatever, it was still a great time!
The next day was ridiculously busy yet again. It all started with navigating through the race traffic to stop at Starbucks before church (2 of us in the group were from Washington and 1 from Oregon, so… duh we need our Starbucks! The poor Ohio and Arizona guys just had to tag along.). Every business on International Speedway has a special parking pass for those who are actually going to the store and not wanting to pay for parking for the race. That day was the 50th anniversary after all, so it was crowded!! Still, we made it to church on time with our tasty breakfasts. If that wasn’t great enough, a bunch of the HS seniors and college kids went to Applebees. I really enjoyed getting to know other people my age from Sovereign Grace. Right after that was a Daytona party at a church member’s house. On the way after stopping at Wal-Mart for snacks, we saw the Thunderbirds at a stoplight. It was amazing!! We also caught a glimpse that morning from school. After a great day of novelty and fun, we closed with a visit to my favorite ice cream place, Ritter’s. Phew!! What a busy weekend!
After that, things got a little more normal as I settled into my new routine. I played tennis a couple of times with my talented friends. It was only my 2nd and 3rd time, but I improved a ton. Now I only sock one over the net every once in awhile. 🙂 I always treated the racket like I was playing badminton which I learned is a big mistake!
Bonding with people in Doolittle has also been a wonderful experience. My two friends (girls) from CFC who are just a floor up have come to visit a couple times. We even had a movie night watching Ever After. Fun times! I also enjoy hanging out with two guys on my floor. One is CFC’s worship team leader and the guy who takes us all to Sovereign Grace on Sundays and the other I met through him (Sorry for the terrible grammar, but I’m trying to not give people’s names unless I ask them permission! :)). It’s taking me awhile to figure out all of their inside jokes, but I’ll catch up eventually.
Ok, so I lied about normality I guess… the week continued to be nuts! Alex and I went to see Spamalot in Jacksonville. We had great seats and the whole thing was AMAZING! We even were able to find some good deals while shopping beforehand. I got a $10 dress and then after the play, got Spamalot shirt and shorts. As we walked out of the theater, we saw the beautiful lunar eclipse. I took a picture, but my zoom isn’t exactly the best for space objects… 🙂
From that day on, it was mostly all about studying and reviewing notes. I didn’t work at SPRL the last two weeks either because I got a bad cold. Napping in my room was all I wanted to do. Thankfully, by the end of the first week, I was feeling great and able to go to CFC. We stopped by a coffee shop. The live singing was fun and we laughed the night away with drinks and snacks. It was “Volcano” something or other. I dunno.
After a wonderful Sovereign Grace sermon, we all rocked Chili’s! I couldn’t decide what I wanted to save my life- it was so weird!! My favorite moment came when our waitress asked if we wanted separate checks. One of the guys said, “Well, we’re together,” pointing to another guy. Of course we all laughed at the completely untrue, joking implication you could pull out of that. Then she said, “OH… ok, and the rest of you are SINGLE, right?” The three of us left laughed and said “Yes, but did you have to remind us??” Funny times…
Let’s see… this is getting pretty long, but I’ve been doing a lot of exciting things, so sorry! My last comments would have to be that I started up exercising again which has been perfect now that I’m close to the sparkling new Fitness Center. Also, after my BIG CALC 2 TEST that I’ve been studying for 3 weeks for is done, I’m off to a Third Day concert in Orlando at the House of Blues. I’ll save the details of this weekend for the next journal entry…
Man, spring break and Washington DC with my mommy is SO close!! I can’t wait!
March is-a-comin’!
Love, Nat
