Grad week

Well, it's finally over: the class of 2005 has graduated. The week's been centered around those graduation activities. Well, not as much for me, because I've been out mostly with my other friends. Like I said, Monday night involved being out at Coffee Bean and playing cards. Yesterday I went to Coffee Bean (again!) with Dan to talk and catch up; he told me about his freshman year of college, so it was good to see how he's doing. We went to the chapel the seniors put on that same evening, and it was really good. Two of my "younger brothers," Than and Robert, shared reflections during the chapel that were mature, profound, and touching. They are both awesome young guys who I know will make a huge difference in this world for Christ. Afterwards, a bunch of friends came over to my house for junk food, talking, and a movie that we only watched ten minutes of. Squeezing ten people (including me) into our living room was interesting. :-) It's a little small for ten people. Anyways, it not only included my friends from my class--Andy, Daniel, Ben, and Emily--but it also included Robert, Caleb (Ben's brother who's a senior), Dan (the one I went to Coffee Bean with earlier that day), Pam (a girl who was in Dan's class), and Amber (same class as Dan and Pam). Fun!

Today we went to the school's awards ceremony. My sister did so well and received so many awards! That my sound like bragging, but hey, I'm proud of my sis. She was awarded four course awards (an award given to the best all around student in each class) for AP English 11, US History, Evangelism Explosion, and Who is God? (a Bible class). She also received recognition for different levels of achievement in academics and fine arts. Finally, she was given the (very big) Academic Award, given to one student from the whole high school who has shown the best performance academically. Usually it is awarded to a senior, so we were all surprised and thrilled when it was given to Lins. And seriously, I'm sure she deserved it; for this last semester, she said her lowest overall, end-of-year grade for a class was the 97% she made in AP English--and that's amazing! (The 97% is without the ten points that is usually added to AP classes to even out GPA) So I was really proud of her.

I spent the rest of today at home and then went to the graduation ceremony. Andy picked me up and went with me, for which I was grateful, because he was the only person I ended up being able to sit with (Ben and Daniel sat up front because their brothers were graduating, and my other friends were already sitting with their families). The program lasted just over two hours...yes, it's long. But I was really proud of those kids! Particularly the ones who are special to me, my "younger siblings," Christina, Than, and Robert. So that was neat! Afterwards, my friends and I went to the food stalls to eat and talk, which was fun as well. And that's pretty much been my last few days! Busy busy. I hope all of you are doing well, and I hope that you treasure the relationships and friendships you have in your lives...they are such special gifts from God. He's blessed me with some really neat friends from my school, who, even if we haven't seen each other in a year or two, can still pick our friendship back up the moment we see each other. It's a neat blessing--God is good.