The Azusa Pacific Blog

Well it’s now only been a couple weeks since I left Bass Lake and transitioned back into life at home in Illinois, and oddly enough, it feels like I never left. The places I go and the things I experience have started to blur together and I’m having difficulty remembering where I am and what’s next.

Transitioning from place to place is an activity I have gotten used to over the past three years. The sounds and smells that accompany airports have become engrained in my memory. Even the smell of jet fuel has now associated itself with the though of coming home. Suitcases have become dresser drawers, sometimes never getting unpacked simply because I know I’ll just be packing them again soon. 

It’s hard to not really have a place to call home. It’s not easy saying goodbye to my family, my girlfriend, and my friends over and over again. 

As I’ve been relaxing at home the last couple weeks with friends and family, however, I’ve had some very good conversations about this very topic.

It could have been so easy for me to not take a risk and stay at home. I could have gone to a Big 10 school 30 minutes down the road. I would see my family multiple times each semester. They would come up and visit and come to football and basketball games with me. My friends from high school would have become my college friends. My life would have been much more predictable and stable – I would have had my whole life laid out before me in a easy-to-read instruction manual.

But as I talked to my friends and observed their lives, I realized how lucky I am. How lucky I am that I took the risk to go to a school 2,000 miles away in a place I’d only been once before where I would know not a single student. How lucky I am that I have been able to experience the sense of adventure of going to a new place by myself, meeting new people, and pushing myself to see how much I could grow. How lucky I am that I’m at an incredible Christian university where I am gaining not only a top-notch education, but also investing in the eternal – in my life as Christian and everything that entails. 

So many things wouldn’t have happened if I wouldn’t have come to APU. I would never have met so many amazing people that play such a huge role in my life. I would never have had the opportunity to experience the outdoors like I have and gain the love for them that I have today. I would never have met Kelly, my amazing girlfriend. I would never have had the opportunity to travel so much and see so many wonderful things in the western United States. And I would never had the opportunity to experience something like High Sierra.

With the ability to look back with some clear hindsight, I can now positively say that High Sierra was easily my best semester at Azusa Pacific. I gained so much from my time there and I am not the same person today as I was when I first stepped onto that campus in September. There were definitely some hard spots – being away from some very important people in my life – but those relationships are all the stronger now for having gone through that.

I love the fact that I’ve been able to blog about my experience up in the mountains this past semester. Going back over my old posts and remembering all the fantastic times I had up there is something that will never get old. In fact, my dad printed out one of my posts and framed it for me for Christmas so that I’ll always remember what I took away from High Sierra. 

I hope that through blogging about my experience at High Sierra, I was able to incite in you an interest in this amazing program that APU has to offer. I hope that what I shared with you described to you a little bit about the absolutely amazing staff and faculty that played such huge roles in my life who I know call friends. I hope that I showed you how many life-changing experiences I had that shaped me in new ways and helped me to grow both as a student and a Christian. 

And I hope you’ll e-mail me if you have any more questions about High Sierra because I would love nothing more than to talk to you about it and give you more insight into the semester!

I’m now getting ready for another transition – my next semester back down on main campus. As I am preparing to head back out to the Golden State, a lot of people are telling me it will be very difficult transitioning from High Sierra back to life in Azusa. 

Leaving High Sierra was a very hard thing to do. To say goodbye to the life I had known for the past three and a half months was difficult to say the least. But shed tears I did not. 

As my roommate Dan and I drove away from Bass Lake a few weeks ago, I had a smile on my face – not because I was glad to be leaving, but because I knew what awaited me. I had just spent the last three and a half months being filled to the brim spiritually, academically, and experientially by the faculty and staff of High Sierra. I am astounded at the efforts and time spent on us students by these amazing people. They created this semester to be one that inspires and causes growth in these areas, and through their wonderful efforts they succeeded in that. High Sierra was very hard work, but leaving that campus I knew what awaited me – the opportunity to take all that I learned and bring it back into life at main campus, life at home, and life in the future. 

And I think that is exactly what the semester was set up to be – a time for filling the students up so that they might return to their lives in the “real world” as better scholars and stronger Christians.

Transition used to scare me. It symbolized instability and starting over. But today – transition gets me excited. I’m ready to take on the next chapter in my career as a student and I’m ready to take everything I learned at High Sierra and apply it. 

You’ll hear from me again as soon as I get back to APU for the Spring semester. My pictures may not be as exciting as before (can you really beat Yosemite?), but I hope you keep reading as I discuss my transition back to “real life”.

I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Years! Watch a lot of movies, spend a lot of time with your family, and take a lot of naps! See you in a few weeks!

Hello again!

It’s been a while…and a busy past few weeks! I’ve managed to squeeze in quite a few activities since I last posted (a multi-pitch rock climbing trip, Trek 2, a lot of homework/papers/projects, and a trip down to main campus for Thanksgiving).

I’m back now from Thanksgiving break and things are beginning to wind down up here at High Sierra. We only have nine days left in the mountains, and they’re going fast.

Allow me to update you on some recent occurrences.

Three weeks ago we loaded up our packs with sleeping bags, rain jackets, fleece layers, headlamps, and the rest of the gear, threw on our hiking boots, and loaded up the vans for a 4-day trip to Yosemite Valley for our second Trek.

Just like the first Trek, we split up into our teams of about 10-12 people and drove up in separate vans. Now, from here, I’m not allowed to give away a lot of secret details from the trip for those of you who might be considering High Sierra, but I can tell you that we hiked all over Yosemite Valley, saw three waterfalls, a couple of bears, and saw the valley floor from a number of different vantage points. The pictures I post should help explain a little more, but I can’t ruin the surprise for those who might be coming to High Sierra ;-)

It’s tough for me to decide which Trek I enjoyed more, since both were such remarkable experiences, but second Trek was definitely a time where we were able to grow and deepen our relationships with the people on our teams. After almost two weeks together in the wilderness, you get to know each other pretty well.

In other news, I recently finished my final project for my camping class, which was a blast to complete. The project entailed designing an all-encompassing plan for a 4+ day backpacking trip. I decided to plan my trip for Glacier National Park in Northern Montana. I’ve never been there before, but I’ve seen pictures and heard stories of the beautiful, glacier-carved mountains that fill the landscape of the “backbone of the continent”. My trip came out to be seven days and 55-miles – a slightly ambitious project. The project required us to plan every square inch of the trip and is now sitting in a folder completed waiting for me to go do it!

The last nine days here are going to be hectic, but the faculty, staff, and RA’s are working hard to make sure we have plenty of breaks and fun distractions to keep us motivated. Art journals, final papers, and tests are filling up our days, but it’s been so great to watch our collective attitude towards these assignments change from duty to privilege over the course of the semester. My final papers have now become a great learning experience where I get to sit down in a quiet room and actively reflect on what I’ve learned this semester. The fear of writing a fifteen-page philosophy paper has subsided to joy and I’m actually excited to write it! Now I just need to get started…

I’ll be checking back in later this week or early next week with some more final words on my High Sierra experience. But for now…it’s time to write those papers.

Good luck to all of you with your finals as you approach them and remember to think of them as another learning opportunity – they become much less daunting that way!

Clouds over campus

More clouds creeping in before a big rainstorm

Our view of the valley from atop Eagle Peak

A spot along a creek where I had my solo time

El Capitan Meadow where we reunited on the last day of Trek

A view of Half Dome on the way down from Yosemite Falls

Being that the semester is almost to a close, I’ve come up with a top ten list of the things I’ll miss most about High Sierra in no specific order:

1.) The Community. 34 people living together, eating together, studying together, working together, hiking together, and helping each other become the best students and people we can become. Living in this environment produced so many amazing friendships that will absolutely continue into the rest of our college careers.

2.) My bike rides around the lake. Being an avid cyclist, I obviously brought my road bike up to campus expecting to stay in shape. What I didn’t expect was the absolutely beautiful rides I would have while living up here. About three to four times a week I was able get out on the bike for a ride around Bass Lake. My favorite rides were the ones right before dinner, as the sun was setting, and the shadows of the trees along the road were long, and the sunlight had turned golden.

3.) The classes and the professors. These professors care about you and your education. They spend their days, and often their meals, with you, getting to know you, building friendships, discussing topics from class, going on Trek, and truly playing a paramount role in your semester up here. These professors and their classes opened up my world scholastically, teaching me so many new things and giving me a new, enormous appreciation for learning and reading. My last year and a half at school will be ten times more fruitful and productive because of them.

4.) The faculty and staff. Rob, Katie, Meredith, and Colleen, along with the camp staff who keep this place running are absolutely one of the reasons this semester has been so amazing. God gave these people a passion for higher education and they have poured out a lot of who they are for our benefit here. They make this place what it is, and APU is so fortunate to have them as faculty. Make sure, if you come to High Sierra, you get to know these people – they have a lot to offer.

5.) Yosemite. The third most-visited national park in the United States was my backyard for four months – how cool is that?! I was able to make it up to the park about five times this semester (and about ten times too few), and saw so many incredible sights. We saw views of the valley from Sentinel Dome, Half Dome, Eagle Peak, the Devil’s Bathtub, and the top of Yosemite Falls, and accumulated about 50 miles of hiking in the park. I don’t know if I’ll ever have the opportunity to spend so much time here again in my life, but I do know that having this epic landscape fourteen miles up the road was one of the most incredible parts of the semester, and the things I’ve seen there will forever remain in my memory.

6.) The food. I ate a lot this semester. A lot. And I couldn’t help it. The food is just that good. With a magnificent, home cooked meal to look forward to each night, including a fantastic desert afterward, my mouth was watering every time I walked into the dining hall. Breakfast each morning, a great smorgasbord of options for lunch, and a bottomless cereal bar were some of the reasons I just couldn’t stop eating!

7.) The campus. Being that I was born in Illinois, living on the border of the Sierra National Forest in Northern California was something I never thought I’d have the opportunity to do, and will probably never have the chance to do again. Waking up in the morning and hearing birds and smelling the crisp, pine-scented air is an event that never got old after three months. Coming from the loud, smoggy, busy environment of Southern California to quiet, clean, cool, green Bass Lake was fantastic, and I’ll miss the heck out of this place.

8.) The deer. A family of deer resides somewhere here near campus, and each morning and evening they make their way onto our grounds to graze. After living here for several years now, they’ve grown accustom to being close to people, so I’ve been able to stand on the porch ten feet above them and just watch them feed for fifteen minutes at a time. And just the other day, I saw the buck for the first time – a beautiful eight-pointer. Slowing down and stopping what I’m doing to watch those deer everyday just makes me feel even more removed from quick-paced society and appreciate the place that I’m in all the more.

9.) The lake. Bass Lake is one of the most beautiful places I’ve been to in this country, and all semester it was my playground. We wakeboarded, swam, kayaked, and camped along the banks. I biked around it and ran along the trails that wind through the surrounding forests. Some people would kill to rent a home here for the summer. I had the opportunity to live here for three months…I count myself as pretty lucky.

10.) Sleeping on “Star Rock”. Looking up at night and seeing more stars than you thought existed is something that never gets old. Sleeping under them is even better. I’ll always remember my nights on the rock, sitting around an enormous, glowing bonfire talking with friends, then sleeping under the dark sky and bright stars on a cool night in my sleeping bag.

- I’ve also compiled a list of things you all can look forward to from me next semester as I will still be blogging after I return to main campus:

1.) More blogging (obviously)

2.) More pictures

3.) Being that I am the “Study Abroad Liaison Blogger”, I’ll keep up with the up and up on APU’s Study Abroad program, interviewing students who have been to other study abroad’s and providing you with some insights into your options as an APU student.

4.) Some in-depth Oscar coverage (no, I will not be discussing the evening’s celebrity fashion choices).

5.) A view into the life of a returning study-abroader to main campus and how the transition happens.

- And since I love lists so much, here’s a list of my top five movies from 2008 (so far)*

1.) Rachel Getting Married

2.) Young at Heart

3.) The Dark Knight

4.) Wall-E

5.) In Bruges

*Unfortunately, this is an incomplete list, as there are many movies I haven’t seen this year, and a great deal of fantastic films still to be released before January 1. I’ll update this list again after the beginning of the year closer to Oscar season.

- In my next blog I’ll have a report from Trek II including some pictures.

Talk to you all soon!

Like I said last time, the seasons are definitely changing up here at Bass Lake. The leaves are turning, the days are cold, and the nights are colder. The clouds have slowly crept in lower and closer to the hills behind campus, bringing with them a great deal of rain.

With the weather as it is, and Oscar season beginning, I’ve naturally been watching a great deal more films lately. And it really is difficult to top the feeling of popping in a great movie and kicking back while the rain falls outside.

Every year at this time, a list goes up on my computer. The list is of great importance and documents what I hope to accomplish in the coming months. It is a symbol of anticipation and a source of excitement. This list consists of the next tweleve, or so, Friday’s and their corresponding movie releases.

Being on the brink of Oscar season means it’s time for me to get my game on. Each Friday that passes by without a movie viewed places me further behind in my attempt to view each Oscar-nominated film. By the time the ballots are released on Oscar.com I hope to have seen enough to be able to form some well-informed opinions.

So far this year, the race has appeared fairly slim, with only a few films being discussed as possible nominees (“The Dark Knight” being the frontrunner in several categories right now). While in San Francisco, I saw “Rachel Getting Married” and really enjoyed its refreshing genuineness (this movie puts Anne Hathaway on the Best Actress list and will most likely get a nod for Best Original Screenplay). I’ll definitely be pulling for that one come February.

There’s going to be a whirlwind of great movies in the coming months that will be considered for nomination, including “The Boy with the Striped Pajamas” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5FU-yDC-uI), “Australia” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7R2mN6D3sQ), “Gran Torino” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9teLeXZ3XMU), and “Defiance” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIO8OI0JP50).

As I return home for Christmas break, my Friday evenings will be spent at the local movie theater with my good friend Brett as we continue our ritual of catching the newest release and afterwards discussing our opinions over a cup of hot coffee. It really is a great time of year :-)

Something else to check out – my good friend Anders recently published a new project for APU’s University Relations Department on the school’s South Africa semester. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzeHZADr0E0) It’s absolutely incredible and really does a fantastic job of showing why this study abroad opportunity is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Also, he’s currently working on a similar video for the High Sierra semester! He was here about a month ago filming around campus and is currently in the editing process. I’ll be posting the video as soon as it’s up, so be on the lookout for that!

Has time been flying by for anyone else this semester?

As I write this blog, it is November 4^th. The semester is two-thirds over. Where has it gone?

I suppose part of the reason has been that I have been so busy up here lately! The last three weekends have entailed a camping trip, a visit to main campus, and a weekend in San Francisco, and in between them has been a great deal of reading.

I’ll start with the camping trip. This semester I’ve been enrolled in an Outdoor Experience class in which we learn the essentials of camping and backpacking. These essentials have entailed backcountry navigation with a compass and map, basic knot-tying skills, backcountry cooking, and knowledge on outdoor gear such as sleeping bags, tents, and essential clothing among other important things. It’s been a fantastic class based on hands-on experience that has allowed me to learn a great deal more about a passion of mine I want to learn more about.

Our mid-term for the camping class involved a day and a half of field experience in the Ansel Adams Wilderness. Not a bad way to take a test eh?

Thirty minutes up the road from Emerald Cove Camp, the home of High Sierra, our trip in the wilderness included a morning of rock climbing and off-trail navigation, an afternoon of rappelling off the side of a 120-foot rock, and opportunities at each meal for different groups of students to show off their newly perfected backcountry cooking skills.

The trip was one of the highlights of the semester so far and it was a blast to put what we had been learning all semester to work in the wilderness and see our progress.

The following week brought with it midterms and the excitement of heading down to main campus for Homecoming. After we worked our way through the tests and exams, all 34 of us rode down to main campus for a much-anticipated visit to friends and families.

I was especially excited because this meant I was finally able to spend a whole weekend with my girlfriend Kelly and some of my best friends. The events of the weekend included a cookout at a park, a visit to Southern California’s favorite frozen yogurt shop – 21 Choices, and a whole lot of relaxing with friends. The highlight of the weekend, though, was the amazing day Kelly and I spent in San Diego. Our day involved taking a ferry across the San Diego bay to the island of Coronado which we toured from the seats of a tandem bike, eating at a wonderful restaurant in the Gaslamp District, and walking around the streets of the city as the fog began to roll in. It was a fantastic day with Kelly and a great way to end the weekend.

As we returned to main campus, the next week was spent preparing for our trip to the city by the bay. Each semester the students at High Sierra get the chance to spend a weekend in San Francisco visiting a number of world-renown art museums, cathedrals, and churches. The trip, organized by Tom, our art professor, involves not only a look into the historical and artistic side of San Francisco, but also the excitement of staying in a hotel right off of Union Square in the heart of downtown.

Each morning we visited a different museum and church, including the Legion of Honor, the Museum of Modern Art, the DeYoung, St. Mary’s, and Grace Cathedral. After a group lunch at the museum or church, we were given the rest of the day to explore the city. We were even given a one-day trolley pass on Saturday so that we could move around and see more of the city than we could by foot.

My exploring included a trip to the local REI and Patagonia stores (what trip to the city would be complete without visiting them?!), dinner at the Wharf, and a movie downtown. What I did the most, however, was simply sit and take in the extremely diverse and unique population of San Francisco. We were lucky enough to be in the city during the “perfect storm” – Halloween, the election, and the upcoming vote on proposition 8. It was a very interesting time to be in San Francisco, to say the least.

Now I’m back in the mountains. While we were gone, 25 inches of snow fell in the high country, and winter officially moved in. The last few days have been a time for me to settle again, and enjoy the quiet that High Sierra provides. With only five weeks left, I feel the need to thoroughly appreciate this environment I’m in, and spending a weekend in Los Angeles and San Francisco has definitely made me all the more grateful for where I am this semester.

Bethany and the rock we rappelled off of!

Ansel Adams Wilderness

Me getting ready to rappel

Justin making his way up the wall

Emily getting a few pointers from Meredith

            With midterms taking place this week, I’ve naturally been doing a lot of thinking about my studies. Conversations with my friends have mainly been revolving around the topics we discuss in class. I’ve been thinking back on what I’ve learned so far and how it connects to what is going on in my life. My mind has been consumed with philosophy, art, literature, and leadership.

            The amazing thing is, this week is no different than any other.

            One of the most unique aspects to the High Sierra program is its ability to remove us from the crazy race that we run each day – waking up too early, not getting enough sleep, running an errand to the bank, to the mall, to the library, trying to catch up with friends – all the while just looking forward to the weekend so we can get rest from our crazy lives. Oh yeah, and classes fit somewhere in there.

            The very reason we’re here at Azusa Pacific University, the very reason we work so hard in high school to get good grades to get into the right college, and the very reason we pay an incredibly large sum of money becomes our last priority – our burden – on a long list of “things we have to do”. Being here at High Sierra, away from the race, has shown me that studying, learning, and becoming educated is not “something I have to do”, rather, it’s “something I get to do”.

            I think it’s easy to forget this when there is so much going on around us. Learning requires us to slow down, push away our distractions, and fully indulge ourselves in what we have in front of us – whether that’s Plato’s “Republic”, a research paper on why men and women communicate differently, or the Bible – and that is something for which we should rejoice. To have the ability, as college students, to slow down, push away our distractions in this world, and fully indulge ourselves in a book or an idea – that is leisure. Yet, when our lives are so filled with “errands”, the first thing to go is our studies.

            This is something that I struggle with, and have struggled with over the past two years. Why can’t I sit down and commit myself to my studies? Why do I place everything else before my homework? Why do I feel like classes “take up my time”?

            As Christians, and as students, our job is to become educated and love reason. Plato said that to be educated is to be virtuous, and to be virtuous is to keep our sinful desires under control. So this is our task – our calling – to become educated so that we might learn what virtue is. To fully dedicate ourselves to our studies so that we might be ruled not by our desires, but by reason. And while seeking this, I think its fair to say that we will encounter God in such a way that we never have before.

            This has been my occupation and goal at High Sierra, and when I’m allowed the solitude of the mountains and the rest from the city, I can remember why it is I’m at APU and why it is we’re called to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”