Day 393: From Rookie To Not Rookie

Right now, a lot of people from college are currently at the Powerhouse Retreat, a 3 day thing far from Sydney where we get another opportunity to have a full out God encounter. Things is, Powerhouse and I haven't really gotten along for the past year, and based on the testimonies I got from friends about last year's PH Retreat, I figured I would be better off not going. So I didn't; benefits did come of this though. For one, I got to be one of the last people to say goodbye to my friend Celeste, who is on her way back to Texas for only God knows how long. We all fought the urge to get all teary-eyed, and fortunately we succeeded. In all seriousness, Celeste was one of my best friends in college; we helped each other out in so many ways we were practically brother and sister. That's my favorite part of this college; it isn't just a studying environment, but more of a family environment. Especially here in the city campus, being so close to one another makes it so easy to build strong, lasting relationships with people; I could go to every building here in the Meritons and visit a friend of some sort. Now that second year is here, we see how many of our friends from last year have gone forward in their lives, and those of us that remain have the opportunity of building our friendships even further. Today, Donny and I got to help out a new student, a South African named Josh. He's in the same situation I was in last year, where everyone in my flat went to the retreat and I was alone in an unfamiliar place with no one to hang out with. I refused to let that happen to him, so we took him out for lunch and walked around the area to help him get familiar with Sydney. He's a cool guy, and I hope this year will be as much of a blessing as it was for me; one thing us veterans have noticed is that this new intake of students are considerably younger. Many of them are straight out of high school, so their young mentality shows in the way they act around here; so far, I've heard at least 4 people in the Meritons tell the kids to be quiet when they're out in the courtyard making noise while people are trying to sleep. I know I wasn't THAT loud a year ago, but I understand the situation completely. All I know is that I need to start filming, and soon. College News won't put itself together.

God bless,
Steven