Winter Formal

Winter Formal was last weekend.
Here’s what happened.

Saturday morning/afternoon I helped with the “Ladies Day of Spiritual Refreshment” along with some other lads from Cascade. Despite what you may think, it quite fun!
(**Helpful hint #10,000 if you come to Cascade:If there is ever a chance to work in the cafeteria for a seminar or luncheon, do it. One, it’s an easy way to earn some cash. Two, you get to wear black and white and a super, cool apron thing. Three, you get to eat whatever food is left over.)

After this refreshing luncheon was over, I went back to my room and did nothing until it was time to get ready. I think every girl on the first floor got ready in our room, so it looked like David’s Bridal threw up all over the place! After we had finished we met our dates. Being the gentlemen they are, they each had a rose for us.

Now moving on to the dinner.
We had a lovely dinner: chicken stuff, sweet potato look a likes, and some other stuff. After dinner there was a comedian, Cleto or it might be Cletho? He was from San Antonio so that made me happy. Although dinner was great, what’s a winter formal without some good ol’ bowling? Everyone went bowling afterwards in suits and dresses. I’m going to brag on myself because I am pretty much amazing and haven’t bowled since prom last year. My first 3 bowls were strikes and I think I had either strikes or spares after that, aka I dominated the boys. In between my killer bowls, we danced stupidly around the bowling alley to whatever song came up and then we went to IHOP.

To end this…
Winter Formal was fun.
Bowling was ridiculously fun.
And I am amazing.




Danelle and her date, Kyle (or Hutch)




My date, Justin and I (and my flower, Rose)




The girls.



And Sarah, being Sarah. (don’t ask about the dress)

Summit

Exactly one year ago…
I came to Portland.
I met Danelle.
And I went to Summit.

The Summit retreat was last weekend and from the looks of it, everyone had a blast. It was rather interesting because we had 2 girls stay in our room. If you’ve been in a dorm room you’d understand what I mean by interesting and if not, just know that it is a rather tight squeeze. We didn’t mind though, it was kind of fun and it definitely helped that Elizabeth and Kristin were awesome!

I think the majority of Summit was the same as it was last year, although I don’t really remember, but what I do remember is the rock gym and that’s where my story comes in.

One day when I was working in the admissions office, Tanitra said something about belaying and I said, “Oh, I did that once” and the next thing I know I was at the rock gym RELEARNING how to belay. After a few brave souls climbed up my wall, I saw James (admissions counselor James) and said, “Hey James, you should go up my wall!” He was a little hesitant at first because he didn’t think that I could hold him, but after a little persuasion he decided to climb it.
James and I were both doing great, he was climbing and I was belaying. Things were great, until he fell and tried to kill me. Although he may argue that he was the victim, it was I who was in the deepest danger. James slipped about halfway up the wall and I tried to stop him, as any great belayer such as I would do, but it was no use and I flew up off the ground as he fell down. As we flew the treacherous 6 ft above ground (I think that is what James and I decided the height was), our lives flashed before our eyes. It wouldn’t have been as bad if I had simply flown up and he down, but this experience was a little different. At the time of James’ fall, I was angled out from him, so when I flew up I angled in toward him. To put it simply, we collided a few times in the air and might I add, we hit really hard! After we got down from the near death experience, James went up again and then fell again. The difference this time was that I had positioned myself differently so that IF he fell again, which he did, I would fly straight up. So as he fell and I flew we went straight up without colliding, it was kind of like a ride at Six Flags. I don’t know which one, but I’m sure that it has to be like one of the rides there.
Even though we almost died (kinda/not really), it was pretty fun and I provided a picture for your viewing pleasure.



P.S. People who came to Summit…Come to Cascade.
P.P.S I saw pictures of Summit, good times.

That’s All.



This is James as he was about to die, luckily I saved him.

Only With Erika...

Portland is full of crazy kids who belong to crazy parents, which is why I love Portland! Every time I go out with my friend Erika, we always meet someone ridiculous on the bus that makes all of our adventures amazing!

It all started last semester during Fall Break…

All of our friends thought that it would be cool if they went home for Fall Break, which left only Erikaand me at Cascade.
There was only one thing to do so we took advantage of our time and went on an adventure!! We adventured all day long, but as we waited for our bus that night our adventure hit its climax.

As we were waiting at the bus stop, Erika started talking about astrology signs. About 5 minutes AFTER we had finished talking about astrology this guy, around 20 years old or so that had apparently been listening to us, jumped into our conversation and started talking about water signs. It was totally random because I think we had moved on to a conversation about muffins or something and then this guy jumps in saying, “They used to have 13, but now there are 12 water signs!” After we figured out the subject of this new conversation we were apparently in, we all got on the bus and he sat right across from us. Although the details of this story make it absolutely ridiculous (wow, I sure use that word a lot), I will cut to the point. Anyway, this guy was crazy, he went on about water signs, then Satan, then china and then back to Satan and back to water signs. He switched subjects about every 4 seconds while he rocked back and forth rubbing his arms and hands. While in the midst of this he starts shouting at us, “Do I exist to you? Do I mean anything to you? Do I exist to you?” So, to calm him down I replied, “Yes of course you do.” We thought that would calm him down, but we were far from that. He started talking about how Satan and the moon came together on Christmas to make pizza or something and then started shouting the same thing over and over again. About 20 minutes later we reached his bus stop and as he proceeded to get off he offered me gum. I politely said “No thank you,” but he insisted that he was not a stranger, rather a good friend, and I should not refuse his generous offer of 2 pieces of gum. So I took them, and that was that.

Then, Erika and I went out again a few nights ago and met another interesting character on the bus. He was cool in the sense that he showed me these super hideous pants that he bought for his girlfriend and told me about how he was going to surprise her with them. During our conversation with this man, Erika’s sister called. This same man then began to shout at Erika saying (to her sister), “I hate you, I hate you!” A few minutes later, our new friend began to yell at everyone on the bus, asking if they had any weed. It really was a great day!... and then we saw him in Macy’s today.



Erika and I Before we met the pants man.




Erika and I (at Saturday Market), maybe this is why the astrology man kept talking to us?