Hey there readers, J.P here again! It’s about 11:00 PM right now, and I just came back from the APU Men’s Soccer game against Fresno Pacific University in Fresno, California, which is only about an hour away from the High Sierra campus, which is in Bass Lake for those who don’t already know. Our soccer guys did amazing and we won 2-0!!!
The crowd was obviously full of Fresno students, but me and the other 7-9 High Sierra students still did some APU cheers like “You wish you were a Cougar! Azu!! Za!!! Azu!!! Za!!!” We got a couple of stares from the Fresno students, but we didn’t care. We love our college!
Anyway, back to the main topic: HOMECOMING WEEKEND!!!!! As you guys know, I’m in the High Sierra Semester program where unlike other freshman, I’m studying in the mountains on a satellite campus, instead of on main campus back at Azusa. After a couple months or so of not being back on main campus, we finally had a chance to go back to it for homecoming weekend. It was AMAZING!!! Here’s a rundown of what happened during my weekend at Main campus.
THURSDAY——
Around 4:30 PM, the High Sierra students (me) jump in the vans, and it takes us about 5-6 hours to drive to Azusa Pacific University. We get there around 10-11ish PM, and as soon as I get out of the van, I embrace my Trinity 2nd North hallmate Trevor. I can’t even make it to my room, which is in Trinity on 2nd North, because all of my friends I met during Orientation week in September keep on running up to me and giving me some love. It was awesome. After I finally get settled in my dorm room, I meet up with my really good friends, who are all in Men’s Chorale aka Man Choir, D-Lo, Sonny, Matt, and Omar. They took me out to Alberto’s, which is a delicious Mexican restaurant minutes away from APU. After we eat, we end up going to D-lo’s and Sonny’s dorm in Trinity, on the floor right below me, and we end up playing video games all night long. They had mid terms the next day, but they decided to stay up until 6:30 AM with me. I’m not sure if it was a great idea to stay up so late, but that’s the kind of friends they are….I love them…Which leads me to state that the friends you make at APU will be larger than life. Anyone who goes to APU can agree with me on this one.
FRIDAY—–
So me and my friends went to sleep at 6:30 AM, and we end up only getting around 2 hours of sleep because we have to go to chapel. After a great message in chapel, I meet up for lunch with my RA in Trinity 2nd North, Matt. He is an amazing RA(Resident Advisor), and we end up eating some grub at the Cougar Walk. (Quesadillas!) We catch up on life and he tells me about what’s going on at Main campus, and I fill him in on my semester so far at High Sierra. After lunch, I went to the Men’s Chorale open rehearsal they have every friday. I was supposed to be in Men’s Chorale this semester, but couldn’t because I’m now in the High Sierra semester, but next semester when I’m back on APU, I’ll be able to join my brothers again. I got to see all of my friends, or “brothers” sing and it was amazing. The sound was phenomenal and you can feel the worship tingling through your body. After watching them rehearse, I had a dessert date with some friends at a local frozen yogurt place, called Paradise Juice Cafe.
Later on during the day, the Men’s Chorale went on a night hike that I was a part of. We hiked the Colby Trail, not too far away from APU. At the start of our hike, each of the 70+ guys grabbed a small stone. We hiked up the trail in complete silence, and we were told to think about and reflect upon burdens, sins, and troubles we’re facing. Once we reached the end of the trail, there was a cross laid out in lit candles appearing among us. We each got markers and wrote down on our stone what our burden or sin was that was holding us back. Once we were done writing our sin on the stone, we all placed them at the foot of the cross. To symbolize we’re all brother of Christ, we each picked up a random stone and read what it said. Mine said “LUST”. After we read what our new stone said, the words were painted over in red, to symbolize that God’s blood washes away all sin. We all then lined up and threw the stones across a cliff as we all screamed and shouted. It was a memorable experience. Something that I won’t forget in a long, long, long time.
Once I got back to Main Campus, I saw my hall dressing up as Greeks, in togas with leaves on their heads. There was a “Decades” homecoming dance party, so my hallmates dressed me up as a Greek and we all marched outside in togas. It was hilarious. We stayed at the party for about half an hour, but then most of us left because the dance party didn’t really fit our taste. There was a lot of old music that I had trouble dancing to, and there weren’t alot of people there to begin with. I ended up chilling with some friends for the rest of the night, and ended up going to bed around 4 or 5 AM.
SATURDAY——–
After getting only a little bit of sleep, I woke up around noon to eat some lunch with my friends, Paul and Ian. We ended up going to a Thai restaurant across from APU that was delish. After lunch, I had to get ready for BED RACES!! Bed races is an event in where you are in a team of 5, and 4 people push a bed with the last teammate on the bed. You run to the end of the lane, and pick up a bed sheet, put it on the bed, and push the bed back to the starting line. The winning bed race team gets priority choice in housing during their next year, which is pretty sweet. I was in a team with my Hawaiian friends, and we dressed up as Hawaiians, obviously, and our team name was Boto Boto Sook Sook. Here’s a picture of us:
Yes…..I didn’t have a hawaiin skirt for guys, so I borrowed a girly one from a girl, haha. In our first preliminary race, we didn’t do too well because our bed sheet had a huge tear in it, so we freaked out and took a lot of time putting the bed sheet over the bed, so our time sucked. During our 2nd try, we were paired up against one of the fastest teams. We did really well and were really fast, but the other team was just faster and we lost. We’ll get em’ next year though!
After lunch with my bed racing team at the Cougar Den, I chilled for a while and then went to the Tail Gate Party on Adam’s lawn, where I ate In n Out Burgers!! MMMM!! Me and my friend Jonny raced eachother on some of the air filled obstacle courses. There’s this trampoline-like air filled play thing we jumped in, and I jumped right next to little kids, and made them fall. No one got hurt though. It was just funny!!
I ended up not going to the Football game after the tail gate, but instead I hung out at the Mods with some of my High Sierra friends, and we ended up getting some Frozen yogurt (I love frozen yogurt). I headed back to my dorm in Trinity after and chilled with my boys, Omar, D-lo, Sonny, Jonny, and Matt. We met up with our friends Natalie and Rachel, and decided to do something fun for my last night on Main Campus. We drove to a hiking trail about half an hour from campus, and hiked on it in pitch black. We only had one flashlight, so it was pretty intense and scary because it was about midnight. After our hike, we went to place called “Gravity Hill”. Basically it’s this huge road on a hill where you drive on it, put your car in neutral, and the car ends up driving backwards by itself. It was pretty fun. I rode on top of the car for a little bit. We weren’t going fast at all, so it wasn’t dangerous ot anything… After Gravity Hill, we ate breakfast at Mcdonalds, right at 5 AM. After breakfast, we drove back to campus and played video games all night until morning. I stayed up the whole night and didn’t get any sleep…..
SUNDAY——–
I basically chilled around and said my goodbyes to everyone, including these two girls, Yolanda and Tiff.
Homecoming weekend
I ate dinner at the Caff, and then my friends, D-Lo, Omar, Jonny, Rachel, and Deneva walked me to the vans to leave. I’m not going to lie, once I got into the vans I felt really sad, and upset. I had so much fun during my few days on campus and I didn’t want to leave my friends behind and go back to High Sierra. But in High Sierra, I already have made 22 best friends that I know I will have for a very very very long time. It was hard saying goodbye to my friends on main campus, but I’ll be back next semester, and they’ll still be there. But all in all, Homecoming weekend was a blast!!!!!!!! Don’t you see how much fun you guys will have if you come to Azusa Pacific University?! For any high school students or other people who are thinking about coming to APU and need advice, insight, or any help at all, feel free to leave me a comment and I’d be more than happy to help you guys out!!
Well, I have a mid term tomorrow so I need some sleep! Good night and God Bless, J.P!
RANDOM PICTURE OF THE DAY!!
Julie's a biker, and I'm a.....Jamaican?
