Rafting Down the Illinois River

On Saturday (the 11th) the Honors Scholars Program here at JBU took all the new freshmen and the Honors Orientation mentors rafting on the Illinois River! I’m typing this up today (9/12) so I won’t forget anything, but there are a few other things I want to post about on my blog before this actually goes up.

Anyway, we all (I think about 85 of us!) met at the Honors House at 9:00. Yep, it was a bit early for college kids on a Saturday. Then we all piled into a long caravan of a couple JBU vans and lots of personal vehicles. Thankfully it wasn’t a long drive. It took a while for everyone to get into the river. The rafts had six people each, and most rafts had one mentor and all the freshmen in that mentor’s group. I have four girls in my group, and then we had another girl from a group who had too many people to fit in a raft.

Here’s a picture of me and the girls I’m mentoring!

We weren’t doing anything near white water rafting. Just down river of the drop off point there was one little part that had a bit of rapids. I was sitting on the front seat and promptly tumbled off the seat into the girls behind me when we went over that bit, hehehe…. Not long after that we got stuck on some driftwood stuff, so I decided to hop out and pull the raft off. I managed to do that, but then of course the raft got away from me a bit and so I had to catch up to it and then try to climb in – and I made a grand fool of myself :D But I had fun doing that! J

We went around a bend in the river, and enjoyed some nice scenery – high buttes overlooking the river and things like that. It was nice and peaceful, and we enjoyed floating down river with the current. (We did have 4 paddles, but sometimes we didn’t row and just floated.) A couple times we made ourselves go round and round and round in circles – and that was really fun :D

All the rafts (I think there were at least 14 rafts, plus several 2-person canoes) were really spread out, so we weren’t really near any other people for most of the trip. After about an hour (maybe?), we got to the place where we were all pulling off to have lunch. Our raft was in the second half of the pack, so by the time we got there the boys from the rafts ahead of us had gotten the “bright” idea of stopping the rafts and pulling or making everyone jump into the water. Not that I minded getting wet – but I’m independent enough I didn’t like being forced to, so I tried to “defend myself” a bit :D

Anyway, we enjoyed our lunch. There were lots of butterflies landing on people, a cute little tiny turtle (only a little more than an inch in diameter!) and a not so cute baby snake…the snake was probably about a foot long, and it kind of slithered over one girl’s leg, then went around and tried to hide in a life jacket that was lying on the shore, and then swam off right in the middle of us all. Yep, a lot of us were a little freaked out about it!

After lunch all the rafts and canoes headed on down river again. Some of the other people decided to just swim/float down river rather than riding in the rafts. Our raft was doing just fine, but then a couple of the floating guys decided to come “attack” us. We tried to paddle really fast and get away…..but it didn’t work. Two of the girls went rather willingly into the river, but the other four of us held our ground. J We lost one of our paddles though :/ So there were only four of us in the raft, and we only had three paddles. And we were rather disoriented. There was the really low hanging tree, and we tried to stay away from it….but no, we went under it. We all ducked and screamed a bit, but we made it under :D A couple of the girls said that was their favorite part of the ride….. J Well, we went a little further and then I grabbed onto a tree trunk so that the other two girls could catch up to us and get back in the raft. A little further downstream there was a bank about 10 feet high, maybe? And the water below it was about six feet deep. So five or so students were taking turns scrambling up the bank and jumping into the river. Yep, it made me pretty nervous, and I certainly didn’t do it! But no one got hurt.

We were the last raft, and there were a couple canoes near us. So the four or so people who had been floating/swimming decided to join us on our raft – at least it wasn’t for very long! We went a little further downstream and then we could see the place where we would get out of the river. There was a boat jam there of people trying to get out, so we hung back and floated around really lazily for a little while – the more adventurous ones went and climbed on a big tree that was sitting partly in the water. Lauren, one of my girls, did a neat flip to get out of it :D Eventually, the people downstream hollered at us that it was time to go, so we went the rest of the way down, and got out of the water.

And thus ended our epic boating trip. It was a great idea for a bonding time between mentors and students, and I had a blast. J Of course, today my shoulder and hip are really sore, but it was totally worth it!

catching up! (or trying to)

Sorry I haven't posted in a while...but today I had my homework done by about 1:00! I had English class this afternoon, and since then I've just been enjoying some free time! :D I'll try to keep from getting too long winded here.....

Friday, September 11
I definitely had a long day......
Had a GREAT run that morning, three miles in 29:43!!!
At 10:00 I went to a special class where we talked about our strengths. All the freshman here are required to take a strength finder test (very similar to a personality test). We had taken it before we went and the class was kind of explaining it...so it was interesting to hear more about that.
During my Honors Orientation class, the professor took us to State Line Road, the border between Arkansas and Oklahoma. We were supposed to interview people to find out more about Oklahoma. I saw a sign for a Farmer's Market, so my group headed down the road...but it was too far away...and a lot of the stores were empty...so we only ended up talking to one guy, who didn't think there was any real difference between OK and AR!
I worked that evening, but don't remember anything in particular about it...I think it was my first time to work in the dish room though.... :P College students are so messy and wasteful sometimes :P

Saturday, September 12
I was able to get up in a good time and over to the Honor's Center to do my laundry by 7:30! And I was still there until 10:30 waiting for my loads to get done.....ugh! I was able to get some various stuff done in the meantime though, so that was good.
When I got back to my room, Kaley (my room mate) and her friend were about to go downtown to do some shopping, so I went with them. I needed to go downtown in order to start working on an assignment that is due tomorrow (don't worry, I have finished it!!!! :D), and I was thinking I would have to ride my bike. But I was able to catch a ride with them instead. So I spent the next two hours describing all the buildings on one city block!!!! It was definitely a very interesting block...and I like how it worked out for my paper too :D
I finished just before one, but Kaley had already gone back to campus (she offered to take me back, but I wasn't quite ready to go yet). I wanted to get back for lunch by 1:30, so I walked the 1.25 miles really fast, and hurried up the 100 stairs on campus and reached the cafeteria by 1:10, quite pleased with myself........only to find out what I had forgotten...that the caf closes at 1:00 on Saturday :( The California Cafe (here on campus) wasn't even open...so I got some crackers from a vending machine and ate that and an apple I had in my room for lunch.
I did some homework, then headed to the caf for my four hour shift...they had me vaccuum the whole thing again, but this time it took me 1 hour and 15 minutes rather than 2 hours and 30 minutes! :D I worked at the salad bar during dinner...there wasn't much for us to do, so I ended up cutting honey dew melons for an hour. I think I did about 10 of them. As a result, I got a pretty bad blister right on the inside of my right index finger's middle joint. It hurt almost like a bruise on Monday, so I went to the school nurse and she gave me some interesting little squares of a gel type stuff that soothes the skin by giving it moisture to absorb...or something like that. It's fine now.



[I wrote all that yesterday........now I need to head for class.....At least I got caught up on a couple days! This evening I am leaving for Breakaway, a student weekend retreat for any JBU students. I think it will be a lot of fun! I won't get back till late Saturday night though....I will update again as soon as I can.]

Orientation Days 2, 3, and 4

[This was written last night, but the internet on my laptop was not cooperating....my first class is in about 45 minutes!]
So…Orientation is over, and classes start tomorrow! That means now is my last chance to catch you all up on the events of the last three days :D.

SUNDAY – Orientation Day 2
We started off with each O group going to a church together. Daniel, one of our O group leaders, took us to his church – Fellowship Bible Church of Siloam Springs. I enjoyed it, although it is a lot smaller than CBC and the style is somewhat different. If I had no choice at all, I wouldn’t really have a problem going to that church. We’ll see where I end up though. I know there are at least two other churches I want to try out, and I may go to a bunch just to experience other ways of “doing church.” I’d like to get plugged in before too long though. Anyways, the sermon seemed a little forced…I’m not entirely sure why. His main point was good though. He was preaching on 1 Samuel 14 about Jonathan going up to fight the Philistines with his armor bearer. He talked about how we should be willing to take chances (within God’s known and revealed will) even when we’re not sure of the outcome. After the service, we all stayed for Sunday school which was also very good. It was on James 2:14 and I really liked the teacher. He talked about how works are not necessary to our salvation, but they are necessary in order to have fruitful lives and to receive eternal reward.
In the afternoon all the freshman were required to voluntarily take a survey for UCLA to do some research….as in, the schedule said it was mandatory and then when we got there we found out we didn’t have to….don’t know why.
We had some free time after that, and I think that is when I wrote my essay for the freshman contest. It was based on the book we did for the summer reading program (The Chosen). I will probably post my essay after the contest is over. I like how it turned out….I *amazingly* came in well under the 900 word limit on my first time to write it!!! (I hardly ever do that, as Mrs. S could testify….I get VERY long winded!) [this post is also a very good example of that...hahaha] It came pretty easily, and I know it is because the Lord was giving me wisdom on how to say what I felt in my heart. I found some really good quotes to use too!
That evening we went down the hill, across the soccer fields, and over the bridge to have a BBQ outside of President Pollard’s house (we would not all fit in his house, even though it looks quite big from the outside).
Once we got back we all headed to the cathedral for the video introductions of the different dorm RD’s and RA’s. My favorite one was the girl’s dorm Mayfield…they had a video using most of the songs from Sound of Music, but rewritten with different words. The RD and her RAs then danced to the songs…it was really funny! Then everyone split up and had dorm meetings with their own RD and RAs.

MONDAY – Orientation Day 3
Monday morning we had the Day of Caring. That is where the various O groups go out into the community and do various kinds of community service. Our group (with about 7 other groups) had the job of shoveling mulch at school playgrounds. The school we were sent to had about 10 different play areas, each with a BIG pile of mulch that had to be spread out and leveled. It was hard work, but also a lot of fun. However, the really annoying part was that the first area (probably about 15 feet by 20-30 feet???) only had a mulch pile on one side. We had to shovel the mulch into an unused plastic garbage can we borrowed and drag it across the playground in order to get the mulch spread out. Then, when we went to the other play areas, they all had TOO MUCH mulch, as in, we would get the playground all nicely covered and still have BIG mounds of mulch. Also, we didn’t have enough shovels/rakes/scrapers/etc, so a lot of us ended up using our hands and feet to spread the mulch. I really wish I had brought my work gloves from home, but I didn’t…so I got a blister, and of course it popped in the last 10 minutes of work we did :( I really did enjoy it, even though it perhaps could have been a little better organized. As we were leaving, the kids were coming out for recess. One little girl asked us “Are you JBUers?” I thought that was pretty cute ;-) I really put in about 2 hours of work…after that there were too many people concentrated in too small of an area and so I didn’t feel like I helped much (for the last 45 minutes or so). I came back to my room and took a shower, but my feet are STILL stained from the mulch, even though I have specifically scrubbed them with soap twice! [This morning I woke up really sore…my upper arms and one spot on my back are really feeling it…but it’s not as bad as I thought it might be. Also, I later found out that one of my professor’s twin girls go to the school that we worked on, so that is neat :D]
After lunch, we had several informative sessions to choose from. I attended one about studying abroad, one about living in the dorms, and another one about growing spiritually by getting involved in the small group Bible studies or the various mission opportunities. I’ve already signed up for a Passion group (what they call the Bible studies here), but I don’t know yet which one I’ll get assigned to.
That afternoon we all had to take a relationship/spiritual assessment. Lots of people said some of the questions were really awkward….and they did ask things about relationships with the other sex, drinking, smoking, gambling, etc. but I didn’t really find those a problem for me…. ;-) The more difficult ones were about what my friends think of me….I know what people often say about me, but I also know it’s not always the whole picture…..so I had to decide what to answer more on those. Both this assessment and the survey from the other day were SAT style fill in the bubble tests…bad memories. :P
Next we had a rally promoting JBU sports. They taught us some of the chants and the JBU fight song. After that was the scavenger hunt. Most of my O group didn’t want to do it, so those of us who did joined up with another team. We tried really hard, running ALL over campus…and we probably got second place out of the 33 O groups (but I don’t think all 33 participated)…but we didn’t win :(
At dinner time they had what they called the Homeland Rally. Everyone dressed up representing their home country/state. I went all out, as much as I could anyways. Thankfully, I had decided to take my Texas capitol shirt (I was wishing I had one like Nathan’s though!!!!!), and I put a bumper sticker that said “Native Texan” on it that my mom had gotten me on the back. I wore jeans, brown hiking boots (since I didn’t have any cowboy boots L), braided my hair in two braids, and wore my HSAA bandanna around my neck! One of the other guys from Texas had actually brought some home made chili that was really good! It was a lot of fun.
For desert, we all went to the homes of the faculty that are over our majors. Communications division folks went to Professor Gould’s house. She is the mother of the two girls I mentioned earlier. Professor Warner (the journalism professor) and a couple other faculty members were there too. I was REALLY excited to see that she had a cockatiel!!!!!!!!! She was really really sweet and even let me rub her head! (I could hardly believe that!) I promise I did interact more with the people than the bird though :D
Later that evening was the Karaoke. I didn’t sing anything, but I did watch some….some of it was good, and some of it I didn’t like…but that’s kind of part of the game!

TUESDAY – Orientation Day 4
This morning I went to the Walton Health Center and ran on the inside track. I knew as soon as I got in there that it wasn’t a quarter mile track, and when I ran 4 one minute laps in a row without too much trouble I figured it wasn’t a 200 meter track either. I guessed that it was a tenth mile track, and the guy outside verified that. So I’m not sure that I will be running there too often….that would probably get too annoying. I ran a mile there this morning though, in 11:09. It will be kind of interesting trying to figure out pacing for that….have to multiply by 60, divide by ten, then divide by 60….we’ll see.
After breakfast one of the Biblical professors gave us a session on what the professors probably expect of us. It was mostly common sense stuff like come to class, be on time, do your work well, and so on, but it was a good reminder too.
Next we got together with our Gateway class for next semester (I don’t know if I already explained this before here, but the Gateway class is a required class for all freshman, kind of a Christian philosophy/college introduction class. JBU offers lots of different flavors, from Celtic Christianity to Crime Fiction to Pop Culture. I chose NARNIA!). Today, though, we were purely discussing The Chosen. We started off by writing a 20 minute essay evaluating The Chosen from a Christian world view (that’s the words they used!!! I was quite happy to hear that term again!! :D) I had heard that that’s what the essay had been about before, so I had kind of subconsciously been thinking about it I guess…because I knew right away that I would write about the flawed view of God and the flawed view of man represented in the book. Mrs. S, here is a shout out to you: If I had been told to write an essay in class in 20 minutes about three years ago, I would have FREAKED OUT! Because of your class, I found it thoroughly enjoyable. THANK YOU!!!!!! :D
Next we had a chapel service to conclude Orientation, and then we were FREE FOR THE REST OF THE AFTERNOON!!!!!!!! I desperately needed some free time before classes started to get some stuff done, so I was VERY glad to have it! During lunch, the honors students had an information session with some of the current honors upper classmen.
This afternoon, I received a surprise package from home via a family from church who were bringing their son here. I got some kettle corn and the bicycle pump that Dad and Mom had accidentally taken home, as well as a couple other things. I also found all my classrooms. Now I just can’t wait to actually get into it!!!
After dinner, I played Ultimate Frisbee with a bunch of other students out on the Quad (the big grassy area in the middle of campus). I wasn’t very good at it, although I did make a couple interceptions and once made a score by catching a short toss from another player on my team. It was a lot of fun though! I quit about an hour ago. It was getting kind of dark, and then the sprinklers came on right where we were playing. I decided that was a good enough excuse! Slippery wet grass + darkness + running back and forth a lot = a bad combination in my opinion!
Now I’m going to head for bed….this has been much too long….sorry about that, but kudos to any troopers who made it through the whole thing!!! At least now I feel all caught up :D

BIG stuff from last night

So to finish up about yesterday, we ended the day with BIG Gathering, BIG Games and BIG Coffeehouse. The gathering was mostly a comical video parodying a freshman's first day :D It was funny....then they showed some pictures from last year's BIG games to get us pumped up. All the freshman (300-400) had been divided up into "O Groups" (I found out today that the O group assignments were based on our Gateway class...i.e. we will have a class this semester with the same people we have been getting to know the past couple of days.) Each O Group has 10-12 freshman plus two returning student leaders, with a total of 33 O groups. For BIG games, 5-6 O groups joined up to form a team (Red, Blue, Green, Purple, Orange, Yellow). So each team had 50-60 people.
I was on the Yellow team (and so was my room mate Kaley!) The games started at 9. First of all, we had to come up with a team name and a cheer. I liked ours, but it wasn't as creative as some of the other groups. We called ourselves "Yello Sno" or something like that. We were ALL gathered at the top of the 100 stairs (there really are 100 and they really are steep!!!), and once they were ready for us we trooped down the stairs, yelling our chants as we went. Then we got ourselves painted up with our respective colors. The first opportunity to win points was the performance of our team chant/yell. Next, we were all ordered to take off our shoes and each team put their shoes in a pile. The leaders came and mixed them up, and we all had to sit around in a circle. Once they said go, we all rushed over (all 50-60 of us!), tried to grab our shoes from the pile, and put them on as fast as we could. I think we won that one :D
I think I'm forgetting one...but the next one I remember is that we had 6 teams of 2 girls and 2 boys each. The boys had to drag the girls on a tarp about 15 yards, around a cone and back again, and the girls had to be eating a twinky and drinking a small bottle of coke. I had the job of eating a twinky....it wasn't too hard, but I should have gotten the package opened sooner!
I just remembered which one I forgot! Thirdly (after shoes/before tarp) each team had to get in a long line standing up with their legs spread apart. We rolled a watermelon through the line and then followed the watermelon, reforming the line at the end. Once everyone had gone through, we had to smash the watermelon and eat it as fast as we could. I didn't eat very much of it, but it was pretty amazing how fast it disappeared.
After the twinkys and coke, one of the team members had to eat a whole can of spam, spin around with his head on a bat 10 times, and then write our team name on the grass with shaving cream. I would NOT have liked doing that one :P Our guy did really well at it though! Sixth (I think) was the barber shop. Three of our team members became "hair stylists" (using shaving cream!!!!!!!), three more were customers, three were chairs (kneeling - the customers did actually sit on them!), and six more were shoe shiners/manicurists or something. We also had a "tourguide" for when the judges came, and a barbershop quartet, that actually sang quiet nicely!! The rest of us were walls/windows/barber poles. I think we may have won that one too, but I can't quite remember.
After that, we had to create a "sculpture" by toilet papering some of our team members. We decided to do the Mall in Washington D.C. We had 9 girls lie down on the ground and get covered in TP to form the reflecting pool, a two person stack for the Washington monument, and a six person chair and a back wall and front pillars (and Lincoln himself!) for the Lincoln Memorial. I'm pretty sure we won that one too.
Lastly, we were supposed to get all the TP out of our square (lines marked on the ground) into one of the other team's squares in five minutes. Well, everyone decided to bring their garbage to our square. We had it all cleaned up, and then the full assault started....then we mostly got it cleaned up again, and our group leaders were saying we had to sit down because the five minutes were up. Well, the team next door threw a TON of TP into our square right after we had to sit down....that was really annoying. Our team ended up with second place though, so that was really fun!!!!! We then had to hike back up the 100 stairs and go get cleaned up. I just took a shower, and was a little late for the BIG coffeehouse at 11. I had some hot chocolate and headed up to my room pretty soon after that.

I am at JBU!

Well, as you can tell by the lack of postings, the last week was very busy! On Sunday afternoon we had my farewell party - I was very happy to see quite a few of my friends before I headed off. The librarians from church (Mr. and Mrs. Maness) gave me a send off charge, and then I tested everyone on how well they knew me with a Facebook style "How well do you know me?" quiz. It was fun :D And Mrs. Maness won!!!! She got all 15 questions right!


Monday through Wednesday I really had to get down to the business of packing. It went pretty quick once I actually put my mind to it. Thursday was all doing laundry and packing my clothes....then yesterday my family and I left Dallas at about 8:30. I can hardly believe that was really just yesterday!!!!!!!!


We got in to Siloam Springs at about 2 or so, gave Nathan a tour of the campus (because he had never been here before even though it was my 5th time to come!), then went to Wal-Mart to buy my new bike (which Nathan VERY kindly rode the 2.8 miles back to JBU!!!). We went out to a Chinese buffett for dinner, and by then it was 5:30 (when arrival time started). The folks here at JBU unloaded ALL my stuff for us - they did that for ALL the new students...they're the best!


All the stuff I brought actually ended up fitting in the closet! I could hardly believe it!

I decided that I wanted my bed lofted, so with some umph (especially from Dad and Nathan!) we moved my desk and dresser to one side of the bed and then put my bed on top! It is a little bit of a climb to get up there, but it DEFINITELY makes our room seem a lot roomier!!!!!!! Which is a TERRIFIC thing. We got Kaley's furniture arranged too, then Dad and Mom and Nathan headed out....I actually didn't cry. I thought I would, but I didn't. I cried when we left the house that morning though.
I got my clothing put away, then headed to the Walker Student Center for game night - I played Apples to Apples with a varying group of other folks. Came back up to my room and did some more unpacking....Kaley and I headed to bed about 11:30.
This morning I woke up at 6:15.....I stayed in bed for a while, but didn't go back to sleep....... After breakfast I came back to my room and worked on preparing to write the essay on The Chosen (the freshman summer reading book) for the essay contest....it's due on Wednesday and I still haven't actually started writing it. I basically know what I want to say though.
Check-in to orientation was at 11, then after lunch was the welcome in the chapel by President Pollard. He reminded us that even though we may be confused right now (because of all the various changes happening), we are a beloved child of the living God :D
We then connected with our "O groups" (Orientation groups) and played a few get to know each other games...I have 12 people in my O group. After that I came back up to my room and got a LOT of unpacking and settling in done - it felt REALLY GOOD!!!! At 4:45 they had a Prayer and Farewell time in the chapel...I kind of wish my family had stayed for that, but I'm kind of glad they didn't...if they had, I know I would have cried :( Next we had dinner, then I came back here and FINISHED UNPACKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am officially ALL settled in!!!! All my suitcases, packing containers, etc are all up and away in the closet! So I am very very happy :D
Now we are going to the "BIG Gathering," and then we get to play the "BIG games," then at ELEVEN we are going to do the "BIG Coffeehouse"....we'll see if I can stay awake that long!
I'd better run....please comment if you read this and like it!!!!!!!! :D
P.S. on my way back from supper I was THRILLED to see a beautiful, adorable GOLDFINCH!!!! He was really cute :D
Also, I've met lots of neat people so far - now hopefully I can remember at least half their names!!!!