Posts Tagged ‘High Sierra’

Older Entries

halloween and homework.

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

So today is Halloween, and I’m writing a paper. I’ve never been super into Halloween after about age 10, but it’s been great to see carved pumpkins and some ridiculous antics around campus. Last night a few of my friends dressed up like old people and there were trick-or-treaters in the Mods (a sophomore living area), so I thought that was funny.

Right now, I’m trying to gear back up for another challenging week ahead. Sometimes it is hard staying focused with all these events around, but it has taught me a lot about self-control. Though, right now, I’m really distracted by quite a few things, including my plans to study abroad next year, starting at High Sierra, and then possibly on to Australia. Unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be able to go to Israel this summer, but I’m so excited about studying in High Sierra… it’s ridiculous. Hah. I’m also distracted, in a good way, by thinking about the things I learned this week.

This past week was Global Vision week, and basically it is a week where there all these events around campus that are Mission-minded, and are designed to make APU students think about the world as a whole, when sometimes we can get trapped in the bubble of southern california or america. All the chapels are internationally minded, and on wednesday, we had a chapel speaker who brought me to tears and created a standing ovation (which I’ve never seen) for at least 3 minutes after he finished. He was an exile from Libya, and was the most amazing christian I’ve ever met. I can’t honestly describe what he said, or why it affected the whole audience the way it did, but it was life-altering. I actually got the opportunity to talk to him for a few hours after chapel, being a part of the student organization here called MESO (Middle Eastern Student Organization), which is a group that strives to have open conversation about profiles and prejudices of the Middle Eastern nations, and delight in the different cultures that are predominately Muslim.

Anyway, I’ve got to get working on this paper, but I’ll post later on how halloween went. Hopefully I can get pictures of wacky costumes tonight. One of my friends is dressing up as a Scot, complete with a real kilt from Scotland. I’m a little scared. But he and I are going to go to HOLLAH-WEEN, an event in my living area that is designed to keep students on campus for Halloween, and thus keep them safe.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Undergraduate Experience | 2 Comments »

pumpkins and papers.

Monday, October 26th, 2009

My favorite season is fall, or at least it was in NorCal (where I’m from). I love when the leaves turn red and flutter down to the ground, and I love the crisp rain that speaks of hot cocoa and fireplaces and good books, but most of all, I love pumpkins: pumpkin soup, pumpkin bread, pumpkin ice cream, and most of all: pumpkin pie. This morning I woke up missing that fall feeling from home, and decided to make pumpkin bread with real pumpkin and a special blend of spices that my family uses. Now my apartment is filled with the smell of baking bread, and I’m feeling pretty homesick.

It is a weird thing to feel homesick as a sophomore in college, but I’m sure I’m not the only one, especially of those here at APU where there home isn’t close. I only can go home on the bigger breaks: thanksgiving, christmas, and easter break, whereas my roommates live under an hour away from campus. I love being away from home, college is a time to get away and learn about new people and new places, but there are days when I miss my northern california roots and my northern california seasons (if you are wondering what the weather is like here, Azusa has one perpetual season: warm, though, don’t worry, you can still get snow like half an hour away [don't ask me how that works, it just does]).

Last weekend, I got the chance to return to my beloved northern california and visit a place I’ve never been before: APU’s High Sierra Campus. Tucked away in the mountains, in the middle of the Ansel Adams Wilderness, seconds away from Bass Lake is this sprawling campus that is a Christian kids’ camp during the summer and one of the satellite campuses APU has during the year. I honestly felt like I had been transported to Narnia (the kid’s camp has a Narnia themed disc golf course), and I was just waiting for Aslan to come out of the forest. It was beautiful.

The reason I went up there was to check out the campus for a preview weekend (like potential students do at main campus), and make sure it was where I should be next year. It is. My plan now is to spend my entire junior year up at High Sierra. Another one of the bloggers, JP, is a student up there right now, and it was pretty rad to get to meet him in person, after reading his blogs. He’s a great guy, and I see God working on him through being up at High Sierra, and that is a beautiful thing to see. It was good for me to be up there, to hike and shoot archery and read Karl Barth sitting on the porch overlooking the forest.

Here is a little movie I put together about my time at High Sierra, it’s silly and not well filmed, but oh well. And I also am including two other videos about High Sierra, one where our University’s President Jon Wallace (or J-Dub) talks about it, and also another one that the Study Abroad office put together. Have fun watching!

YouTube Preview Image YouTube Preview Image YouTube Preview Image

Alright, well, I have papers to write, so I’ll try to keep you updated as the semester continues to provide quite the challenge in the academic front!

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Undergraduate Experience | No Comments »

Preview weekend at High Sierra!

Monday, October 19th, 2009

Hey there, J.P here again! Last night, 4 vans full of preview students who wanted to get a taste of the High Sierra Semester came up and are staying here for a couple of days. I had a chance to meet Elli, one of the bloggers on here, and she is amazing, and highly intellectual and down to Earth.

Me and the other High Sierra students mingled with the preview students and we had a Bon Fire on Star Rock. Star Rock is not too far from my cabin. It’s basically a large strip of flat land that is made of solid rock. We had smores and then went back to the Dining hall and played board games, more particularly, Apples to apples. If you haven’t played Apples to Apples, I suggest you go out and buy it because it’s an awesome ice breaker game. For those of you who do play it, like my friend Ashley Darrow says, “Helen Keller is the trump card of Apples to Apples”. I concur

Right now, the preview students are going on a tour around the campus. The High Sierra Semester campus here is basically a summer camp. During the summer, it’s a camp, but during the school year, they transform it into a college campus, or a satellite campus to be more exact. We still get wi-fi internet service, but cell phone service is pretty hard to get, but the service is always great up on Star Rock.

Later on during the day, the preview students and High Sierra Semester students are going to go on a hike, and then we’re going to do a lot of fun activities High Sierra provides every day like archery, kayaking, and mountain boarding. It’s refreshing to see some new faces after I’ve been seeing the same 21 faces everyday since I’ve been here.

Tonight, we’re going to eat dinner and play a game called “Murder Mystery”. I have no idea how to play it, but I heard it’s kind of like Clue or Sherlock Holmes. I can’t wait to play it tonight and I will tell you all about it on my next blog. My cameras broken at the moment, but I think my other friends have cameras to take pictures.

Two days ago, me and my High Sierra friends played sardines on the campus here. Here’s a picture of all of us:

High Sierra students about to play sardines!

High Sierra students about to play sardines!

Playing Sardines at High Sierra!

Tags:
Posted in Undergraduate Experience | 3 Comments »

God’s got this…

Friday, October 16th, 2009

Many of the other bloggers have been talking about just how busy they are, and I 100% agree. As someone who love being academically challenged, I thrive in the demanding pace of my honors classes and my upper divisions. However… there is definitely a point reached (that probably has something to do with learning an extremely difficult language, not sleeping, and drowning in theology along with other life stuff) that you just want to say: I give up, Enough is enough.

I reached this point earlier this week but a blessed blessed thing occured: Study Day, which is a essentially a day off from classes to… well.. study. A lot of students used their ‘Study’ day to pontificate upon and studiously participate in the magical world of Disney (haha…) and some use it for… SHOCKER: Studying. I however used my study day as a much needed sabbath, a time to breathe and reflect and realize that I’m not surrendering the stress of school over to the God who holds All things in His hand. Right now, I’ve been personally going through Foster’s Celebration of Discipline and the coupled book of Spiritual Classics as well as daily devos with Buechner (my favorite theologian), so I spent time in those as well on Study Day. I say all this not in a spirit of flaunting or anything, but more as a reminder that despite the business of life there is first and foremost the priority to God and the priority of honoring Him with rejoicing in the day He has given. And sometimes that means taking a day off (weekends or study day), or if you really can’t manage a whole day, then at least a few hours of intentionally relishing in His goodness and His Word and surrendering over stress.

So life can get (and most likely already is) extremely busy and overwhelming. It is important to remember that, as my youth pastor used to say to me, “God’s got this, you can let go now…”

Peace be with you!

I’ll post a more spunky post soon (I’m going up to High Sierra campus this weekend to check it out as I’m planning on going up there in the Fall of 2010), so I’ll post pictures and stuff from that when I get home!

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Undergraduate Experience | No Comments »

Key Points of the Year

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

Well, it has been quite a while since I blogged about anything, and like JP said in his post, College is a BUSY BUSY Place.

First, there is RA, which I feel is mostly a recharge for me, I love spending time with my residents, if I could simply be an RA without everything else, I would be set for life! Just building relationships and planning events and just being creative and there for my residents is the most amazing feeling.

Then there is Class, which is… well work. However, its nice to go somewhere and actually know what it is you are learning enough to give input whenever you learn anything new, to actually be a part of the dialogue and be able to practice the skills right after learning them… is that what it is like for all students? I feel like I am one of the worst students ever, I have never really felt like I was a part of a class, just simply taking in information that was forced at me, but here, I actually feel like I’m taking in things, actually learning. And after 2 years of Gen Ed Classes, its nice to find a major that I actually enjoy learning about, and that is why I am in my second year of Graphic Design.

Then Work. I really love what I am doing, working with computers, its the best when I get what we call Tech Aura where most every computer I touch gets fixed, but it sometimes gets frustrating, especially lately. There have been so many new problems with computers that its taking me a little longer to figure it all out. I am starting to feel like the worst manager ever, I can’t ever seem to get anything to work right. Luckily, I am surrounded by a very supportive and awesome staff, and team of Managers who are very helpful, making having an on campus job seem so worth it!

And Lastly, Track! We just got back from a retreat to the High Sierra campus and a hike up to Eagle Peak in Yosemite. It was so amazing and beautiful. This year, instead of rushing up the hike, I got a chance to just stay back and enjoy the scenery and take pictures, and get to know some of the new members of my team. And then on Saturday we did a fun ropes course and a canoe race. Sadly, the platform that we usually all sleep on was dismantled, so we just slept all over the top of Star Rock in random places, but it was still fun. All the pictures I took are located here: http://www.staphon.com/staphon.com/albums/Pages/Destination__Eagle_Peak.html

When we started: YouTube Preview Image

How the Arnold’s hike (My dad and I on the hike): YouTube Preview Image

Where we Ended: YouTube Preview Image

Conclusion: YouTube Preview Image

So, with all that, its a wonder I can every get anything done, but with all my APU friends, its not bad at all. The only thing I really have to keep my priorities strait is remember is our school Motto: GOD FIRST!

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Undergraduate Experience | No Comments »

When we say we barely have free time in College, we mean it!

Monday, October 12th, 2009

Hey, its J.P again!! Sorry I haven’t been blogging much, but as the title says, College is extremely busy!!!!

In case some of you readers don’t know already, I’m studying in the mountains near Yosemite for a semester long program called “High Sierra”, which is sort of like a study abroad program. For my Leadership class I have here at the “satellite campus”(campus that is not on the legit APU college) the 22 students here had to go on a 6 day trek in Ansel Adams(sp?) which is part of Yosemite. For 6 straight days, we have no classes, no internet, no phones, no showers, and worst of all, NO TOILETS!! It was a great experience; One of those things that you do once n a life time.My trek group for the grueling 6 day trek consisted of 9 other classmates and professors.

Here are some pictures from my 6 day trek!Me on the 6 day trek for High Sierra

Looking out to YosemiteSLab Lake in Yosemite

Some people from my trek group summiting a mountain!!

Some people from my trek group summiting a mountain!!

The 6 day trek was tons of fun!! I had a “Solo”, where I was by myself in the wilderness with only my sleeping bag and a few other things. I spent 24 hours by myself, and chose to fast the whole day by choice. In the 24 hours while I was on my “solo” time during trek, I have never felt more closer to God in my entire life. I spent the whole day in solitude, and spent a lot of the day appreciating God’s majestic creation and basking in the sun by the lake(a picture of it is above here).

Now, I’m back on campus with the 22 or so other students, and have been trying to transition back to the groove of the dreaded 6 classes I’m taking here at High Sierra. Don’t get me wrong, I love the classes that Azusa Pacific offers and I learn tremendously. The teachers here are amazing and are like mentors. A few of them that I can name off the top of my head are Dave Williams, Mike Robbins, and Tom Dunn. They are some rad professors!

I have had a difficult time trying to juggle my time wisely. In college, countless temptations get thrown your way and at times, it will be very difficult to turn them down. Instead of doing homework, I’m tempted to hang out with friends, watch a movie, play a game or sport, or even procrastinate on facebook! I barely seem to have time to call my parents and siblings back in Virginia, and even my roommate back on the APU campus.

All in all, College is the most amazing place on Earth, besides a church of course. :) I have met some quality friends here, and I have learned so much just as a person, and also as a Christian.

To close off, I’ll just explain what I did today to give you a taste of what college life is kind of like:

I woke up around 11 am because I didn’t have any  classes today, and then chilled with a few friends until it was time for lunch. I didn’t get a chance to eat breakfast since I woke up so late(Breakfast is around 8am here at the High Sierra). Then, my friend Rachel Eblin trimmed my hair with her own personal hair cuttery kit. After my trim, I went on a mini “field trip” with about 8 other students to Starbucks to study/work on homework. We could of just stayed on campus, but the track team from Azusa Pacific is here at High Sierra for a team building weekend or something, so there is constantly a lot of noise because of how much fun their having. The few of us who couldn’t concentrate, and the students who wanted to leave campus for a while decided to go to Starbucks and I got a lot of work done. It’s relaxing to get away from campus and the whole college environment for a while and just relax.

Right now, it’s about midnight and I’m typing this blog in the dining hall, which is filled with at least half of the guys and girls from the APU track team. I’m about to work on some homework(story of my life) and get some sleep.

I plan to blog more often, sorry for the abscence. Like I said, I barely have any free time, but I’ll make this blog job one of my priorities. :)

Night, J.P

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Undergraduate Experience | 1 Comment »

Older Entries