September 10, 2007
Hey everyone, I’m back again. I have just come off of a very busy weekend and am already underway with classes for another week. I’ll try to keep this post short, but I don’t know if that will be possible. Here’s a recap of my weekend.After classes on Friday, I headed off to the West Virginia border with eighty other students from UR InterVarsity and we spent a weekend at a lodge in the mountains. We got to know each other a lot better and I made a ton of new friends, many of whom are upperclassmen. The first night, we broke into small groups and had to perform a Bible skit with a specified accent, character, and genre. For ours, we had to tell a kung foo version of Ananias and Sapphira using an Australian accent and McGuiver. All of the skits were hilarious and it was a great way to get to know each other. After a night of looking at the stars and talking on the front porch, we turned in.
Katie, Me, Alex, and Ben all went to the InterVarsity Retreat 
Getting to know each other better on the porch
As part of our skit, I was stuffed into a woodbox since I “died”
The mountains of West Virginia
Jumping into the dirtiest pond I have ever seen
It was so disgusting. Our arms looked orange under the water.
Sleeping Under the Stars
The freshmen of InterVarsity
Saturday had two sessions of worship and reflection time. We had a group talk about things that were on our minds and ways in which we could improve InterVarsity. It doesn’t sound very exciting, but it was a very honest discussion and the group as a whole became really close. We talked about the pressures of college life, the strive for perfection, and the feeling of aloneness at college. In the afternoon, we wandered through the mountains on some trails. We found a pond and decided to go swimming. However, the pond was absolutely disgusting. It was dark brown and you couldn’t see anything. Once we got out, we were covered in slime and filth. The pictures may tell the tale better than anything I could possibly say. I was finally able to play some Ultimate Frisbee and I forgot all about homework and school for quite a while. That night, we sat around a campfire and had s’mores and then played Encore.
After returning on Sunday afternoon, I was unable to do any homework and had to attend Investiture, a ceremony for all of the Freshmen men of the University of Richmond. We all got dressed up and had out first picture taken as the Richmond College Class of 2011. For those of you who are confused by Richmond College, UR is divided into a mens’ and womens’ college system. It’s a little confusing to explain, but it doesn’t affect too much. Anyways, it was at this even that I came to a sad realization: I am short. I’m 5’6”, but when we lined up according to height, I was the second shortest in our entire class. This is not exactly the case since I saw some people shorter than me jumping ahead in line. On the bright side, though, I was able to meet a nice guy named Andrew through this adventure. We were the shortest two and were walked in front of the entire class who was already seated. Needless to say, some of my friends gave me some grief.
On the way to Investiture
The procession into the Chapel for Investiture
After a procession to the chapel and speeches about traditions and the Honor Code, we officially became members of the Richmond College. After singing the school song in the bask of our candles, we were able to get on to our lives again. It was rather corny and I didn’t really get inspired by it, but I guess it’s tradition. Since I didn’t feel like doing homework after Investiture, I went to see “Pirates of the Carribean 3”, the weekly film presented by CAB at the Pier. I ended the weekend by falling asleep writing this post and am currently wrapping this up on Monday.
Quote of the Week: “Get out of bed and think about it later.” – Eric Liddell
Thought to Ponder: Why do we play in recitals and recite in plays?
Shout Outs: All my teachers back home from high school: Mrs. McLaughlin, Mr. Friedl, Miss Tammen, Logan, and anyone else who may be reading this from Hudson, Wisconsin.
