Urbana06....

To begin with....

W-- the sign of Urbana/this generation: Whatever, Where ever, Whenever.

A fun pic of me at Urbana with other staff from around the country on the job...We were know, thanks to Jimmy Jao, as the "people with light-sabers." Very technical, indeed.

Ok, so I'm not so great at the updating thing...

Urbana was awesome! I'm not sure what made it so great, it could be several things, such as:
-God being very real, very present in it.
-That it wasn't/isn't so much about building up your faith or the experiencial stuff (such as getting a "God-high"), but about actually *doing* something with your faith...about not settling
-Standing on street corners around St. Louis very early in the morning and very late at night.
-the prayer ministry stuff and the people there
-going somewhere for a week and having all of my favorite people come with me too! (that was pretty amazing in and of itself!)
-mini-IV staff renuions at the airport at o'dark-thirty. :-)
-My room/hotel: Lynds, Colleen, Phyllis...this posh hotel 3 blocks from the convention center, with a great view of the arch and river and comfy beds!
-meeting MHC from '01 and '03
-NEW YEAR's!

or, it could be a combination of all of the above.

Small side note about New Years: typically, this is my least favorite holiday...but this year, its among my favorites. I spent it on a street corner, and at the beginning of the night was a little bummed about that (the other 22,200 people were inside the dome). But as the clock neared, and struck midnight, it became one of my favorite New Years... i was stationed on a 'new' block (not the location that i had spent the rest of the week at) and with a different partner. But there was a club on our block, blaring fun music and we could see the city's fireworks at midnight. I also had the joy of being hugged, high-fived, thanked, and hand-shook by a couple thousand delegates as they came from the dome and went safetly back to their hotels. AND of course, watchign the delegates dance to teh music as they walked down my block. That, in addition to the light-hearted atmosphere, was the best. The verdict?-- Sober, Christian Asian guys dance a whole heck of a lot better than drunk white guys. Girls grooved as they walked, but guys tended to stop and dance some.

I moved into the JR (MHC staff house, for those who are wondering) and it's beginning to feel more like home. Not that it didn't feel like home to begin with, but the level of "home feeling" has increased. It wasn't by any fancy powers or things, but rather the small things: like adding my tea stash to the tea drawer and my FD stuff to Jen's FD stuff and that to the house's FD stuff...you know, the little things. It'll feel even more like home when my pics arrive from WA (ahem, Dad....) and are on the walls and around my room.

A very belated, but nevertheless sincere, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!