Thursday, August 30, 2012

Livin Life

Came up to eat lunch, and couldn't find any of my friends, so I decided to have some alone time. Grabbed my plate of stuffed baked potato, and sat at a small table looking out a window, and pulled out my laptop to journal a bit.
Coffee has become my very best friend(Sorry Emily, Caitlin, Lydia, and Lexy) as dorm life keeps me up late, and class wakes me up early. They warned me on my first day here that sleep deprivation is the number one cause of college illness. What I didn't realize thought was just how easy it is to not get enough sleep. Today though, I had so much fun, when I got out of class, and propped up a makeshift pillow on a bench, and took a nap outside...man this is a good potato...ehem... It was splendid, laying there, feeling the hot sun on my face, the warm wind blowing through the leaves on the trees, and birds chirping in their own kind of melody. I keep having these awe ha moments where I feel like I have truly found paradise.
As I sit here in the cafeteria writing this, a guy dropped his plate and made a loud crash. The entire cafeteria, at least 300 people, broke out in applause. I am fascinated enough to want to mention it!
I have now had 2 of every class but PE. My first PE class is tonight. However I have used the gym and swam in the pool, and from those experiences, I think I am going to love PE.
In my psychology class they are going over the different types of psychology fields. The professor told a story of a student he had in the past, who wanted nothing more than to graduate with a degree from ORU, but her schizophrenia was so severe she could not complete any of her classes. He talked about how hard the entire faculty and staff tried to help her dream come true, but she simply could not pass the classes. They eventually allowed her to sit in on the twice a week chapel, to still feel like an ORU student, but even then, her sickness worsened everyday to the point she began to get physically ill from poor hygiene. They finally had to help get her into a permanent mental illness ward, and she never got to complete her ORU education. My teacher finished the story by saying, "Every year I watch my students walk across that stage and receive their degree and I think of her and wonder, `Do these people have any idea just how blessed they are to be graduating from ORU?'"
He mentioned people will tell us we are fortunate to have the money, to have the support, to have the brains, to be able to graduate. But his message to us is that we are blessed to even have the mental ability to go to class. He ended with the inspirational word, "That woman wanted nothing more in life than to graduate from ORU. But she was never able to. You are living her dream. Make it count." I was telling my bestie Lydia everything he said, she pointed out, "That's so amazing. The teacher cared about her so much, that he tells her story to all his students. So even though she couldn't graduate, her time there has had a lasting impact that inspires other students. He helped make her time there worth it."
I had another class, which the college president Mark Rutland, teaches. He told a story that I am writing in this blog because I want to remember it forever. He said he was going to school in Maryland. He had a teacher who was a passionate atheist. One day the teacher found out Dr. Rutland was becoming a minister, so he made him stand up in class and asked, "So Mark, you are a Christian? Do you believe God can do everything?" "Yes." "So can God make a rock so big God cannot lift it?" "Yes." "Then God can't do it!"
Dr. Rutland then said, "I wish I could go back and take that class again, and tell that teacher what I know today. Because today I could stop him at his first statemnet and say the truth that no, God CANNOT do EVERTHING! God cannot lie, he cannot break his promises, God cannot sin, God cannot quit being God!" I loved that and I want to remember it for all my life! So I am documenting it here. :)

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