New. Classes.

Sometimes the new just scares me. I know it's not very hip to admit it, but it's true. Even when it's a very familiar new, such as my 12th new term of college (just 2 more to go after this one! and yes, that includes some years with trimesters). Still, the unknown factors loom ahead, never failing to bring a good share of anxiety along with them.
That said, when the rational side of my brain is functioning properly, I'm really looking forward to this new semester. I'm taking:
-Anthropology of Global Christianity - potentially the coolest class I've ever taken. My favorite professor basically chose his favorite students (or at least oldest) to be in a class on his favorite subject matter, which I also happen to be extremely interested in as well. It's going to be good.
-Christian Thought - the Gen Ed. historical/systematic theology class. My professor seems great, and we're reading a Latin American theologian to boot!
-HNGR Field Research Methods - with all of the outgoing interns on that big internship I have coming up. We're all friends with each other so that should be fun.
-Bi-Culturalism - not the best, but at least it's Anthro and I have friends in it.
-Craft of Anthropology - also not the best but at least it's Anthro and Michael's in it.

P.S. I'm not taking 5 classes at once, 2 of them are half a semester long so it's only 4 at a time.
P.P.S. I'm planning to go to California with Michael for Spring Break, which was already exciting enough, but I just found out today that my beloved Beckers and Chaz are going to be moving there the week before we come so I'll get to see them too!!

The visit.

Usually after a visit to or from my beloved boy I have a post full of exciting pictures documenting all the adventure and excitement the week contained. Michael was here this past week... but I have no pictures, and not just because my camera ran out of batteries.
Michael arrived on Thursday early in the morning, which was nice for me because I got to see him all day long on Thursday, but not so great for him becuase he had to wake up at 3:30am. We both agreed it would be a quiet day and he'd be more up to his usual par the next day after a good night's sleep. This was fine because we had pleanty of plans for adventures in the coming week including staying the night with my family in a cabin in the mountains and snowboarding a couple days, and travelling to either Portland or Seattle for New Years Eve to celebrate the end of 2007 with a bang.
Friday was nice, we went for a run in the pretty Oregon country and were feeling great. Friday night was my Grandma's 87th birthday party at Michael's Landing. Just before we left Michael started feeling a little under the weather, and with a little convincing finally decided he'd better stay back. By the time I returned 2 hours later he was laying in bed completely sick with a full fledged stomach flu. I spent the next day or two rarely leaving his side and trying to keep him hydrated while his body tried it's hardest too do the opposite. After 48 hours he started feeling better.
After 3 days of being stuck in the house we were ready to get out. We'd missed the snowboarding trip, which was quite sad, but we were ready to shake it off and head up to Portland for swing-dancing and more than one meeting of old and dear friends.
1:00am New Years Eve morning, it hit me. From 1am-8am I threw up about a dozen times. Michael then got his chance to take care of me - feeding me crackers dipped in chicken broth and reading Laura Ingles Wilder outloud.
Needless to say there wasn't a lot of adventure or excitement the week of Michael's visit. But we did learn some very important lessons about loving each other, and in the end, that's the most important thing... right?