If you’ve been following my Seven Semesters series, you won’t be surprised to know I was fearful and skeptical of what this next semester might bring. But I clung to the truth and truly saw that
when I have the least amount of control, God takes control and wonderful things happen.
I came into junior year with very low expectations, but it was hands-down-by-far fabulous.
[Side note: if you want to have background music while listening to this post, I’d recommend you listen to what I jammed to all year: Florida Georgia Line, the Pitch Perfect Soundtrack and Joel Piper songs including Gimme That Love Song and The Only One.]
First of all, my job kept me very busy at the beginning of the year. I didn’t realize what a large role I would get to play in homecoming, but I loved the extra responsibility, bonding with my boss, and seeing everything fall into place on homecoming day.
My floor even called me “homecoming queen” and they encouraged and supported me so fully, that other people on campus thought I was legit homecoming queen! (We don’t, in fact, have homecoming court) Ha!
I went for round two of freshman mentoring. Man, this group threw me for a loop. Before I met these students, I prayed that they would feel comfortable to speak and get to know each other, and that they would have peace. I think God probably laughed at this request. My fabulous group walked in the door bouncing jokes off of each other. I’m so thankful for this group of students; I consider several of them good friends to this day and I loved their spunk and preparedness for college from the start.
I think this picture accurately displays the enthusiasm and excellence going on in this ALPHA FYF group. But can I just brag about this group a quick sec and tell you that they’re all doing amazing things – some on campus, and some outside of campus? What a TALENTED group of leaders, smarties, and just genuinely nice people.
I was nervous about housing but I have to tell you that it was, legitimately, the bomb.com. My roommate Allison and I spent so much time together and we got along very well; I just love Allison because she is one of the kindest gals I’ll probably ever know. We would go on Tours of the Town where we’d visit, like, eight different places in one of our nearby towns. And then there was the time (I think we called it Man Night?) when we went to Menards, Wal-Mart and Nonna’s Pizza. I should honestly write a blog post about all the music we jammed to because we did a lot of that.
We had two wonderful sophomore suitemates, Anna and Kelly. I couldn’t pick either of these girls out of a crowd before junior year and I can truly say I felt so blessed living with them. Kelly is artistic, a dedicated runner, and a stylish shopper! She’s also extremely sweet, hard working and a dear friend. Anna is a smartie! She also played softball and spent a lot of time with her teammates. She’s a beautiful, loving, and thoughtful big sister and I know her younger sisters look up to her so much. What a joy it was to get to know these ladies!
10,000 reasons to sing praise to the Lord.
My RA Lisa was also theeeee best. While completing her most difficult year of nursing school, she took the time it required to take on the RA role; and she didn’t just do it- she did it well. Because Lisa prayed for and supported and loved me, she became one of my closest, dearest most treasured friends. I learned what a support system can do for my emotional health. And she showed me-by example- what it means to truly live for Christ.
Lisa was a part of Juice Pouch night, which was clearly a great time with even better company.
LaGrange night is my most recent favorite memory with Lisa, and it still makes my heart happy to think about the good time we had together there.
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