Fellowship and a bit of fun

Hey everyone!

I haven’t posted here in a while. I have been seriously lacking in my day to day updates as I have had a pretty busy year. I would like to transition this blog into something other than those updates. I will slowly be doing that as I move forward in my life.

My grandmother would like more updates along the lines of the old, so I hope that the transformation of this will lend itself to that.

I don’t know what that will look like, and I don’t know what will come down the line. I cannot promise at this time updates ever **so many days** but I think I can promise a short blurb from time to time on activities in my life.

So today, I am reflective of events that transpired this evening.

For the last year and a half I have been attending a weekly youth group of sorts at the local Episcopalian church. I was initially invited there by my friends Chad and Mercedes. I went for a few reasons at first, to get to know Chad and Mercedes a little better, for the free meal that the church offered on Monday nights, and also because I had felt empty on my religious front.

My first number of years here at Eastern I had church hopped, and eventually stopped going on Sunday mornings. I couldn’t find a place that I felt I liked being. So when Chad and Mercedes invited me I thought it might be a chance to get back into the swing of things. I have really enjoyed my Monday night group, even though I must admit it is not the spiritual need that I so desired. It has been a great place to find people who enjoy each other’s company and care about one another. That is really what tonight was all about.

We have slowly been planning tonight for 5 weeks now. This quarter we have, as a small group, been helping out with Feed Cheney, a program that feeds the needy the last Monday of every month. At our first this quarter in January we met some of the Lutheran Campus Ministry as well. Our respective pastors are friends, and we talked about getting our groups together one night soon. So we planned, and left and it sat for a little while. Finally with some pushing and prodding we got together 5 weeks later.

I donned my chefs hat after a weekend of eating nothing but chicken noodle soup (I’ve been sick) and set about making what is my staple dish, in the crock pot at least, BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches.

Needless to say the night was a smash. We had 18 people there in total, a big step up from our usual 6-8 norm. The church was filled with laughter and good times.

I will let you know that I have found other places in my spiritual life to fulfill the desire to be searching God and trying to live for him.

Athletes in Action(AIA) is something that I am very privileged to be a part of this year. Being an athlete has opened doors and friendships for myself that I have really enjoyed this year. This is one of them, a fellowship of Christian athletes meeting on Tuesday evenings, living and working through the I AM SECOND movement, click the link to check it out, I’ll update more at a later date. It’s been a joy.

Through AIA, I have also stemmed myself into a small bible study group, right now three of us meet on Tuesday mornings, and work through one chapter of the bible a week. Ephisians Chapter 5 is on tap for tomorrow!

So that’s all I have for now. It’s a bit jumbled, it’s a bit scattered. It’s a brief update on my life, and where I hope my life continues to head. Fellowship, and developing my relationship with God more.

Until the next time,

Brandon

Alarms

I’m in bed still, typing this up from my laptop.

The fact that it is 5:30 in the morning, that I am also a college student, usually means that I haven’t gone to bed, if I were a normal college student that is. I’m not. 

I have always been the old man of all of my friends, early to bed, early to rise. Time to get those runs in (even though practice in high school was in the afternoon, and I set my own schedule for most of my college career). I have been known to fall asleep wherever I please. If I was comfortable in your house, I would fall asleep wherever I was sitting, the couch, at the table, or sometimes the living room floor. It wasn’t unheard of, and often expected. Maybe it was because I was always exerting myself in running, maybe I just needed more sleep than other people. 

That didn’t change much when I got to college, my first roommate can attest to that. I chose those 8 am classes. I sought them out. I knew that I would be up and ready to face the days. Early on you could find me in the PUB (Eastern Washington Universities student union building) enjoying a donut (or two), reading the comics (and rest of the newspaper) and enjoying my morning before class. I made friends with the ladies who cashiered the dining hall and even had a friend join me for a time in my mornings. 

I was this way up until the last year or so. Last winter I took a class that was easily one of the toughest I have taken here at school. I was constantly in study sessions, I was constantly working to do better, to be better. We had a core group of 5-10 people that met at least twice a week to get our homework done and study for the tests. I had already taken the class before, with a similar group that didn’t help too much. I was kind of the leader in last years group. I understood things a lot more and wanted my friends to succeed as well. It made for some late nights, and into my life came one thing that I had never used before. 

Throughout high school I had a lot of trouble with my sleep schedule, I couldn’t fall asleep and once there I was up every 20-30 minutes. Eventually time would come and I would get out of bed, not so refreshed, but having gotten some sleep. I’d muddle through the day and repeat the process the next day. Eventually I got the hang of it, crashing at my already typical “bed time” and waking up early. I did all of this without an alarm clock. When this class last winter came about, I had to use one. I had a Bloomsday class in the mornings, and had to be up at the school by 7 for it, having only come down from the school 7 or 8 hours earlier it was tough. I have always been prideful of my ability to not need an alarm clock and let my internal body clock do the work. 

That no longer is the case. If I needed to be up at 7 or 8 I could do it without a problem, my wake up call this winter, is 6 am though. A much taller task. I also live a good 20-30 minutes from our track teams meeting place. So I have to leave my house right at 6:15 to make it up on time, without having to do an extra 10 push-ups. 

So I now sit here waiting, having been awake since 5 o’ clock, for my alarm clock to chime, maybe I will insert my hand before and shut it off manually. Letting my body do the work it hasn’t been allowed this winter. Maybe I will give myself an extra 10 minutes to gather my things, make sure my lunch is packed and that I have no reason to return back to home before my day is done later this evening. 

Hopefully whenever you find this today, be it this early morning, or later in the afternoon, you thank your alarm clock for doing the job of getting you up. I know I will. For a runner’s job is never truly finished if he or she still has some miles left in their body.

Until next time,

Nobaching Down

School, Cross Country, Church

Hello all!

Well what a crazy few weeks it has been! I am sorry for the lack of updates, I am busier now than I have ever been in my college career, and that’s both a good thing and a bad thing!

First and foremost classes are going super well. I have had two tests, one in my Chemistry test (part 1 of 2 (80%) Part 2 of 2 coming Monday) and one in my geology class that I think went fairly well this last Thursday. It’s always hard to judge how to study for the first exams of the quarter and I typically do better after the first one. My final class geographical information systems (GIS from here on out), has gone really well so far. It’s a pretty easy class in that it just walks us through a program to deal with maps. It’s been great so far!

Cross country is what makes my life busier than it has been. The way in which my school schedule is structured is that I can only be with the cross country team on Tuesdays and every other Monday (as well as weekends). I have to get my runs done in the mornings before class. I typically spend all day on campus, getting up to the school between 7 and 8, and not leaving until after 4:30 most days. Cross country has gone extremely well though. The last two weeks have been especially good for me. I have had great workouts and today had a fantastic race. Since I last sent you a message I have had two races, one in Missoula where I ran a 33:30 8k (5 mile race), I felt terrible this day, but it was a good experience, and one that I have learned from. Today we were in Lewiston ID, and I had a fantastic race! I knew coming in that I would run a lot better, my workouts the last two weeks have had great improvements, I felt stronger and better than I had in the first few weeks, this is partially because I was getting back to high mileage and faster paces. I knew that I could get close to 30 minutes for the five miles, I still think going sub 30 minutes is entirely within reach, but I wasn’t sure if I was quite there today. I knew that sub 31 though was possible, but it still would have been almost 2 minutes of improvement over 4 weeks. Entirely possible to do, but I may have been a little skeptical that I could do it. Well my skepticism was proven incorrect. I ran a 30:22 5k today, which over 5 full miles I was 18 seconds faster than a lifetime pr, and a 2:30 minute pr over 8k’s.

Future races include a half marathon tomorrow and in two weeks I will be spending time in the great state of Arizona for my fourth and final 8k race as an Eagle, for the Conference meet!

Something that has been lacking from these messages is the fact that I haven’t updated you since freshmen year about church. The sad truth of this though is that I had rarely been attending church while here at Eastern. I did start attending an Episcopalian group on Monday evenings last year with a couple of friends, I enjoyed the company and still continue to do this, but this was not the church setting for Sunday I typically sought out. I have however, with my friends Megan Larsen and Jacob Helm, started attending First Presbyterian Church of Spokane on Sunday mornings the last two weeks. I am upset that I had not gone prior. I love it there. They’re very welcoming and it reminds me so much of Mountain View. It would definitely have been a place I sought out to go every week had I been willing to put myself on the bus early ever day over the last many years. I can say that I have found a place to attend though frequently on Sundays, which I am happy about.

As for everything else assume it is well! I hope you are all doing well! I cannot wait to see you all again!

Brandon

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