Update 1

Hi everyone.


Well, I'm in Chicago. I'm moved in and all is running smoothly. The ride up here was not the most fun, but I had a friend with me and we made it. We left the house about 5am on Monday morning and left from there. We made it up here about 6:30pm Chicago time. I was greeted by an old friend, Melissa, who promptly took me around to see everything then called some of her friends to help move me in. With all the help we did it in about 30 minutes. It was amazing.


Tuesday was a bit confusing. I woke up, not knowing where I was and then remembered that I had to take the truck to the drop off place. So after driving and getting completely lost in downtown Chicago with a huge truck, I managed somehow to make my way home on the L and a bus.


That's about as exciting as it gets. I've got my bike fixed up and ready to go for school and my travels around the city. I have a great apartment in the very middle of Hyde Park, and the dogs and I are finally settled and unpacked. That's all.


God is good, all of the time.
All of the time, God is good.


Peace,
Shelley

To the Members of Stockbridge Presbyterian Church

Many years ago, before my eight years of college, I knew my calling was in the church and that I was going to go to seminary.

In April of this year, I was accepted into McCormick Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Chicago.

6 weeks ago I was going to defer because I could not afford the moving costs.

Now, I am leaving tomorrow morning with my two dogs and a moving truck for 5537 South Kimbark Avenue in Chicago, Il, because of the people here.

There is no way I could have made this move without you. You are the reason I am going to seminary right now. You are the reason I knew I was meant to serve the church. You are part of the reason I am still here today.

In times such as these, I often wonder how the church survives. Things are so unstable in our world. But then I look around. I look at people I do not know and those that have changed my diapers. And I know I am loved. I know I am supported. And I thank you. I don’t know how to thank you properly, but I will do my best.

When I was studying under my mentor, Dr. Mark Tietjen, a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary and one of my Philosophy professors, I read a great book by Soren Kierkegaard called “Works of Love.” A book that changed my life. It talks about love never being deceived, because no matter what, love expects everything that humans can throw at it. Love is a concept, Kierkegaard says, that as humans, we have trouble grasping. And we do, I believe. I don’t know that my trouble is grasping love so much as how to deal with overwhelming love. The overwhelming love I have been shown by the people here.

I not only go to seminary to work for God, but I go as a representative for Stockbridge and Carrollton Presbyterian Churches. I am honored to do this, and will do my very best. I will fall, and I will pick myself back up; but I will do so knowing that I am loved by the people here.

I cannot thank you enough for what you have given me. Money is only a human object, but love, love is Godly thing.

Swimming Pools

Have you ever found yourself going through life in slow-motion? That's about how I feel right now. I know that my impending move to Chicago is coming, so I'm starting to think about how I won't see my friends for a while. Granted, I'll make new ones. But there's nothing wrong with the old ones. But every where I go I seem to walk a few paces behind everyone, taking everything in.

I recently found myself all alone at the pool.

I was lifeguarding at Calvin Center, my job of 8 years. The group left the pool an hour early, so, being hot from sitting in the sun for an hour, I jumped in. I floated around for a while, sunglasses on, lifeguard tube under my shoulders holding up my head; and I just floated. Out of 8 years I have never, ever, had the pool all to myself. So I just took it in. There was no breeze and the air was hot and thick. The water wasn't even that cold, but the silence was a first.

What happens when something is impending on us? I know Chicago is coming, and I am more than excited. I think it will be an amazing challenge, but what if I forget? What if I forget the people and the places? What if I forget the sounds of being on a porch, late at night, in the rain? What if I forget the food? No, scratch that, I think I'll remember the food. But the people. Will I always be grateful to them, or is it just now?

Maybe my "impending" move doesn't scare me, but I scare myself with the realization that I am human and might forget people. I don't want them to think I moved on and forgot about them, because it's so easy to do. But I do have to move on. And I don't have to forget.

I mean, really, who could forget those boys?

Fake College Degrees

If you go to college and earn your degree, it's a real degree, right? It comes with all the merits and responsibilities and experiences that one would expect when earning a degree, or does it?

Before you read on: CAUTION. My opinion might make some angry and it is quite one-sided.

Online degrees are now becoming the new trend. Just as leg warmers were made famous by Jennifer Beale in FlashDance, so now are online schools becoming popular. But not because of a celebrity, but because of their easily accessible degrees to the average person. Their appeal is quite obvious. Earn your degree without ever leaving your home or stepping foot onto a college campus and instantly get a job in a field where workers are needed. As a philosophy major, I find no appeal to something that would further my social akwardness.

One of the points of being a scholar in any field is interaction. Interaction with other students, professors, and people in general. As part of the philosophical process, students and scholars interact, have dialogues, arguments, and discuss opinions, ideas and hypothesize about what could or could not happen in certain situations. I could go on and on about this, but any rational human being can clearly see that this lack of interaction is a dangerous thing. How on earth does one learn and expand without others?

I decided to do a random search, to see if I could find an online program for nursing degrees online. Thinking to myself that this would not be possible because nurses have to work with people face to face and they they would need field experience before getting their degree. But, alas, I was wrong. Online schools such as Kaplan University School of Nursing, Drexel University and Walden University, and a few others, all offer online nursing degrees. No classrooms to step into, no people to talk with face to face, no people to practice drawing blood from, just a computer. No offense, I don't want a nurse that went to an online school for his or her degree. So, if you are a nurse reading this and you have an online degree, please just walk away from me before I ask you to leave.

Also, I really don't feel as though someone who has gotten an online degree has put in as much work as someone who actually went to college. So why do they get the same piece of paper as me? I won't go on about this anymore, but let's be honest here: raise your hand if you got an online degree. If you are raising your hand right now, good for you. You got a degree. I earned mine.

The Mighty Ducks

In my first year of working the best job ever as a camp counselor, I had a kid we'll call Danny. He had a syndrome called Prader-Willi Syndrome. He came to camp each year to ride the horses and live life as a normal kid. Only had had to be stopped from eating too much so he wouldn't over eat; had to take shots daily on regular intervals throughout the day so he could live. He would fall asleep during the most inconvenient times, like in the middle of the woods, in the red clay, while it was raining. No joke. But what I remember most was his love for the Mighty Ducks movies. You know, the ones with the young Joshua Jackson. He never could comprehand that we could not do a skit on the Mighty Ducks because the other children voted against it. There were alligator tears that night, then he fell asleep. One night he ate an extra plate of onion rings. (For those of you who don't know, Prader-Willi Syndrome causes the person to possibly eat themselves to death. There is no switch inside of them that says when they are full.) So typically we monitored Danny's food intake. And I guess we didn't see him get his second plate of onion rings that night after dinner. Needless to say, he began to smell quite stinky. So, Paul, our boss, Dennis, our UC, and Blake, my co-counselor, all told Danny to take a shower. Their conclusion was that this poor child had gone to the bathroom in his pants, hence the smell. So once he was in the shower, the boys called into him. "Stay in the shower and do not come out until we tell you to!" So Danny did as told. One of the guys took a large stick and hooked his underpants, needing to check and make sure how bad the track lines were. Needless to say, there were none to be seen. The poor child had gas, and only gas.

Danny passed away a few years later. It was an accident and there was no sadder day than when he passed away. It was the alrgest funeral Henry County, Georgia ever saw, or ever will again for that matter.

There is no point for this story, except for the fact that he is a child I will never forget.

This photo does not include him, as this is a more recent photo of a camping experience I had with some kids in North Carolina. I don't have a photo of Danny, but I still remember him.