Yesterday, I started a book called the Tangible Kingdom Primer. It's a book to go through with a small group or missional community or whatever you want to call it. The whole missional thing is a real buzz word in the church world today, and as such I think has lost a lot of its real meaning. This primer is helping discuss what it means to be missional, basically it means you are sent to live among a people proclaiming the gospel with your life and with your deeds. So in that sense it's different than just a small group I guess. A small group is more of a once a week meeting where you study the Bible or some book like it. A missional community is supposed to be more intentional about hanging out with each other more during the week as well as encouraging one another to be intentional about your lives the rest of your working day or evenings with your family. Right now, though, I don't feel very intentional about anything, really. Kind of just surviving the days to be honest. I hate when I get like this. I get in a rut and then am just going through the motions instead of actually feeling like I'm doing any real living. Anyone else have times like those? My mom said everyone has those times so I'm hoping I'm not alone there.
A couple weeks ago, I joined a running club that is basically a couch to 5k program. We meet on Tuesday nights and Saturday mornings at Fleet Feet and go for a little run/walk. Our first night we did a mile, which I was intimidated by, but I made it just fine because our intervals were 2 minutes of running followed by 2 minutes of walking. So far, I'm really enjoying this new endeavor as it makes me more accountable to work out on a more consistent basis since I paid for it. Plus, I'm meeting new people which I always can appreciate as I'm a fairly social person most of the time. In the midst of this running club, I'm happy to say I've lost about 5 pounds, some days it's more than that and some days it's less than that but I average about a 5 pound weight loss from where I was at the beginning of the year. Losing 5 pounds was one of my new year's resolutions so I'm really happy that I accomplished that. Now I just need to keep going and shed some more pounds so I can fit a little better in my size Large shirts again. I've had to move up to XL this past year and as such about three quarters of my wardrobe is a little snug for my liking. Ideally if I can lose about 10-20 more pounds they'll start fitting correctly again. Now I have to set a new goal for weight loss since I achieved my first one so quickly. Maybe I'll try to lose another 5 pounds by April? I don't know, I'll have to think about that one for a little bit.
School is going well for the most part. They did give me 20 students though and it seems like when they're all there it adds to the energy of the room quite a bit. We were using counters and ten-frames for math today and they got a little out of hand to say the least. I love doing hands on stuff like that because I think they really need the manipulatives when they're first learning math in particular but they get overly excited about doing stuff with their hands. Which is how it should be, probably, but I need to find a way to contain it at least somewhat so I can get my points across that I'm trying to teach on. I also have all these Kagan books for K-2 that I haven't even really cracked open that I'd like to take a look at if I could ever remember to. Kagan is one of those things that I know I should do but it's just so hard to implement it seems like, particularly with kindergarten. Although I will have to admit I had a tough time with it even in 5th grade too.
I booked a flight to Honduras for spring break a couple weeks ago, so I'm pretty happy about the possibilities with that. I haven't been out of the country in almost a full year so I'm way past due in my book. There's just something about traveling that is so good for my soul somehow. I don't really know how to explain that. Going somewhere new and forgetting about all your worries momentarily is a great exercise to cultivate if you have the means and the opportunity.
Oh, and I got a girlfriend recently, which is weird. My views on relationships changed kind of out of the blue and then all of a sudden I had a girlfriend pretty much like the next day, crazy, huh? She's in Japan teaching English. She's everything I look for in a girl plus she likes traveling, which isn't on my list of stuff I look for but is a definite plus. So we'll see how this goes. Hope it works out but if history is a teacher than it's probably not going to end well with me. I shouldn't say that though because she's a different girl and the relationships I'm referring to were way back in college when everything is more dramatic anyways before you settle into a career. Now I've grown up a bit and feel like I can handle a relationship now. All that time of singleness was well worth it though, I drew a lot closer to Christ than I ever could have imagined. And all the girls who I was interested in were looking for something much more serious than what I could offer them. So I figured it was best to not lead any of them on since I couldn't commit to anything serious for a really long time. I told this girl I can't promise a lifetime commitment or anything like that at this point, but that I could promise I'd give us a shot at least. She's supposed to get back to the states in either April or June, depending on if she gets a 10 week position after her first job is finished. If she gets back in June, that would really be kind of funny because I hope to be in Turkey by about the second week in June or so. If we're ever in the same place that would be kind of nice. We'll see though. Long distance is kind of nice at this point. I think if I were to go from nothing straight into spending every waking second with another person I'd just go crazy. This is kind of a nice way to just ease into it.
1 comment:
Stef I presume? ;) grats!
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