What? English? in Philadelphia?

I’ll be departing Mitchell International in 9 and a half hours and arriving in Washington, D.C. in 13. I’ll be in NYC in 4 Days and Philly in 8. Institute begins in 18 days.

 Oddly, I can’t sleep tonight.

 I always get nervous before I travel. I remember before a trip my sophomore year of high school I started dry-heaving in the bathroom before I hopped on a plane. It isn’t a good quality, it really isn’t, but for some reason it always gets to me. There are so many little things that can go wrong, and there’s a lot of vulnerability in travel. You find yourself in a city you don’t know, trusting that this train or that bus will be on time. Also, with two suitcases, a carry-on, and a “laptop” bag, I feel like I am a sick zebra on the serengetti, an obvious target.

However, the travel blogging, including pictures from locations I get to, begins tomorrow. That will be fun!

I was reading on Andrew Sullivan’s blog today and noticed this quote about the primaries that we just completed and the Obama campaign:

Tomorrow I will go to the African American cemetery outside of Chicago where my great-grandparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, neighbors, and my mother and father are buried. And I will tell them that they were right — that if we studied hard, worked hard, kept the faith, fought for justice, prayed, that this day would come.

And it has.

In other news, I’m over halfway through my institute materials, which feels good. I’ve even been able to sneak in some other readings from time to time, a rare occurrence. I’m currently working my way through Why We Aren’t Emergent, a book by a couple of thirty-something evangelicals about the issues that they have with the emergent church, as well as Schools of Conversion: 12 Marks of Neo-Monasticism and Beyond Racial Gridlock.

In other news, my tour of the East Coast is coming up soon. In 9 days I’ll be in DC, and 20 until Philly.

I just sent off the first wave of UW-Eau Claire students for Chapter Focus Week. In seven hours, the graduation ceremony begins. In eleven, I will be done with the R.A. job.

I pulled my first all-nighter in college, and ironically, it was on my last night as a college student. I guess I had to sneak one in somewhere, right?

I had a really good walk last night. I think it was the moment where it began to set in that I really am graduating today. It became so much more real than it had been to this point. But looking back, there’s nothing I would change.

 I bought my tickets for the East Coast tour today. Time to start contacting friends to make sure its a go.

So, today I turned in the final draft of my Capstone to my advisor. Which means I’ve turned in one of my final papers at UWEC, and additionally that Graduation is now 15 days away. This also means that, for better or for worse, the end is almost here.

 It’s been weird to think about what’s going to happen in a little under two months. I’m going to move half-way across the country to teach a subject I haven’t studied in a city I’ve never been in to a culture I’m not a part of.

But, at the same time I know that God is good, and that he does not load us beyond what we can bear. And I know that since that is true, this won’t be too far outside of my comfort zone.

 In seperate news, I ordered two new books today: The New Monastics and 12 Schools of Conversion. I’ve already begun to work on my reading list for between the end of school and the beginning of institute.

Go team.