Last night, I signed up for a men’s Bible study every Tuesday night at the BCM. We’re going to be using the book Disciplines of a Godly Man, by R. Kent Hughes. I’ve read the introduction to it already, and it looks like it will be pretty good.
I’m of two minds concerning this study.
Ever since May 19, 2001, my life had been in somewhat of a suspended state. There have been times that I’ve had the opportunity to move in a certain direction, but for some reason or another, things didn’t move that way.
I interviewed with several companies. Sometimes I got dinged. Sometimes I got called back and offered a position, only to find it already filled later. I even had an offer for what would have been a relatively interesting job that would pay me, someone with no work experience, reasonably well in a tough economy. But I knew that it wasn’t right for me, no matter what the pay.
God started guiding me back to graduate school around late November of last year. He took my eventual goal of becoming a professor and thrust it into center stage, opening doors along the way for the dream to come true. He provided the means for me come to my first choice of graduate schools.
And now the time is almost here. Tomorrow, I have my first day of school in over 15 months. Granted, it’s just one class. But I’ll be officially back. And I know that the upcoming four years (at least) will be memorable for many reasons. I’m looking forward to it. Given the friendships that I’ve already made, I won’t be walking the path alone.
By popular demand (hi, mom), here’s some pictures of my apartment I took yesterday afternoon.
I’m now officially a student here. I registered this morning.
In orientation, the graduate secretary said to get there early, because it would be the best way to ensure getting the classes that you wanted. I figured, “hey, it starts at 8. 7:15 should be plenty of time to be in front.”
Not even close. There were 25 people in front of me when I got there. As a result, one of the classes that I wanted was filled before I could get into it. So now, I’ll be taking two of the harder core courses in addition to two optional courses instead of the originally planned one and three, respectively. I hope that this fall term doesn’t follow Alabama’s precedent of always being much harder than the spring tems, but it’s already shaping up that way.
After that, I went to get books. If there’s one thing that I did not miss about college, it was shelling out hundreds of dollars for textbooks and knowing I’d never get that money back. Oh well. I guess I’ll look at it as “building my personal library” or something optimistic like that. I looked at Amazon to see if they happened to have them for less, but no such luck.
I had to get up really early to get to campus, so I’m not going on a lot of sleep. I’m going to take a nap, and when I wake up, I’ll do my workout.
I am a man of simple tastes when it comes to food, for the most part. I’m willing to try most things at least once, but I know when I like something and I know when I don’t. At least most of the time. Chinese food is the most glaring exception (what was I thinking?)
That’s why I was pleasantly surprised when I tried a Boca Burger for the first time. For those who don’t know, a Boca Burger is a vegetarian burger. Now, before you gag, I’ll come right out and say that it tastes more like real meat than I would have expected. Much more, in fact. I usually give my burgers the A.1. treatment anyway, which takes out any remaining non-meat taste. I especially like the fact that on the whole, they’ve got about 20 less grams of fat per burger and just about as much protein. Brandon likee. Now, this doesn’t mean that I won’t enjoy a real-meat burger every now and then too. 🙂 But it’s nice to have alternatives.
Also, I have actually cooked with a spice now (well, other than making cinnamon toast). Specifically, garlic & herb seasoning. I really like baked chicken, but I was tired of doing it plain, so I decided to try adding spices to it. I bought two kinds – the aforementioned garlic & herb, and rotisserie seasoning. Man, those things are expensive! Five bucks for two bottles! At least they’ll last me for forever, practically.
I hope that I don’t owe Dale Carnegie royalties or anything now.
So, now that I’ve discussed my day fitness-wise, we move on to the next portion of the day – meeting people.
Today has been another busy day already, and it’s only 2 p.m. my time. After all the previous days’ efforts I let myself sleep in. I got up at 10 and after breakfast made my way to campus.
There is a reason that they hype the bus lines here in Gainesville. And that reason is that there is absolutely no parking at UF. You think it’s bad in Tuscaloosa? Oh, no sir. Not even close. Fall down on your knees and be grateful that you do not have to try to drive a car to the University of Florida.
Of course, now that I went and got my Gator 1 ID card, I won’t have to either. 🙂
Also today: a trip to the CISE department, where I got some information about fall schedules and e-mail accounts, the “Infirmary” (I’m not kidding; that’s what the building says. Am I at Fort Florida?), where I checked that my immunization records were ready to go (they are), and the “HUB”, where I went to the bookstore and got a Florida decal for my car. When in Rome…
All in all, there was a good bit of walking done, even having driven to campus. I’ve come to the determination that losing weight will not be difficult here. The walking combined with the sweltering heat and humidity will see to that. Good for me, I guess.
Guess who’s finally back!
And finally got an Internet connection again. Okay, I’m fudging a little bit. I did have my AT&T account still, but I wanted to make the first post in Florida special because it’s the first one from my Ethernet connection! Woo-hoo! I’ve finally reached the world of broadband!
It took a couple of days and a different network card to get that set up, but it’s worth it just to see ESPN.com load up in less than a second. 🙂
This is the last entry I’ll make here before next week, because come tomorrow, it’s time for the big move.
I can’t believe that it’s finally here. It’s amazing to me what has happened in the past 14 months. When I got out of the MBA program, I was fully convinced that I wouldn’t be staying long here; a job was just around the corner.
My car has air conditioning again. Huzzah!