Much Water. . .

. . . has passed under the proverbial bridge. I have graduated from high school, I am now working full time for Miller Seed Farms, my ankle is currently sprained since I landed on a friends foot while playing volleyball, and many other things happened since I last posted.

Graduation went smoothly. There were few surprises, and very little out of the ordinary happened.

The party on the following day was great. I spent the majority of the day hanging out with some cousins at the coffee shop, at the park, at Arthurs, etc., etc. It was NICE.

These fine people are known to modern man as Random Thinker and Teresa Miller, who graced me with their presence for the exclusive purposes to celebrate my graduation and to party. Trust me, we had a nice time!!!!

The youth picnic is tomorrow. It will be a good experience, if for nothing else, because I want it to be.

Later,

thesinger

Field Trip.

I went on my last field trip during my reign as a senior. (Seniors Rule!!!) We visited the Pioneer Mennonite Adobe House Museum in the morning and listened to a lecture by a history prof from Tabor College in the afternoon at an original Mennonite Brethren Church. I don’t have much time, so therefore I will allow pictures to do most of my talking.

One of our most highly estimable tour guides.

One has to wonder how much attention they were paying at this particular moment. (Then again, I was shooting pictures. How much attention do you think I was paying. . ?)

I considered the most interesting room in the house to be the kitchen. Hence, a picture. . .

Eleven out of the group went to Pizza Hut for lunch. It was a good time. We decided to purchase four medium pizza’s for five dollars a crack. Take $23.71 and divide that by eleven people. What do you get? A cheap meal at Pizza Hut. How often does that happen? Not very often.

I believe this is a small-scale counseling session in process. Not a bad thing considering the Father-Daughter relationship that’s happening.

This is us, meeting at a restored church that was built and used by Mennonite Brethren for a long time. It was moved several times, but eventually landed on the Tabor College campus in Hillsboro, KS. It has very alive acoustics and is therefore used for some special events and even some voice competitions. We sang Singabahambayo to enjoy the sound and our wonderful time under Mr. Stutzman.

On the way home, people had “NICE” conversations. One common thread of the day was the phrase, “He was just talking to himself.” It’s a cryptic way to explain away a bad joke, a strong word, or anything else you didn’t want more than a select few to hear. Very clever!!!

We also visited an old house that some of the richest people of Hillsboro lived in “back in the good-old-days.” I thought it was totally awesome!!

Since I have little more to say, I will conclude with one of my life phrases: “What a deal. . .”

thesinger

Tired

Today was Evie’s funeral. It was a God-honoring funeral, but as funerals for relatives normally go, it was quite exhausting. I didn’t catch on how tired I was until I climbed into my nice Accord and drove home. Sigh. . .

I assisted with the special singing during the service and burial, even though it was mildly strange to sing during the funeral of a cousin. God allowed the tears to come during the family share time before the service and held them back during the service/viewing. Praise the Lord!

School resumes again tomorrow which is good, but not so good if it hits you in the face like an aqueous towel. A slight dripping sensation down the front of the chest is not often solicited.

May your life be filled with stupendous joy in Christ,

thesinger

More the newsy type of post.

Soon I’ll be heading off to some volleyball. I think it should be fairly high quality. 🙂 SPEAK TO ME!

I didn’t get as much school done today as might have been healthy, but, I got an adequate amount of basketball played. (around two hours worth) The last game we played was some of the lamest/funniest/weirdest basketball I have ever played. Every one was absolutely devoid of energy and giggly. The combination was very funny. It also totally destroyed our defense abilities. But, it was very fun.

I have a free-choice informational speech coming up. I am planning to talk on the subject of blogging. I would be interested in hearing from my readers if any of you have a comment or an idea about blogging that you would like to share with me. Accepting help now.

thesinger

News briefs. . .

Kenya is in serious political turmoil. Pray.

On a “slightly” more local level, Benji and Hans Mast are leaving to go attend Sharon Mennonite Bible Institute. It’s just all sadness and gladness at the same time.

I have started school after a rather long and restful break. This also means that I am continuing to practice piano at random and varied households that own a piano. It is good to be playing again and “making much music” after a very long break.

The Anonymous Somebodies are taking a “relaxative” from singing together since Crystal left for Calvary Bible School. We have two more concerts coming up in late February and early March, after which we have no definite plans to sing or not to sing, if you know what I mean.

Songleading at church has been going fairly well and I am enjoying it very much.

I will be taking speech at Pilgrim this next semester under Mr. Schrock. It will probably be a lot of work, but hopefully I can learn the skill of “speechifying” well.

Nothing out of the ordinary is happening this weekend. Work, fellowship, etc., etc., are the norms and I don’t suppose it’ll be any different this weekend.

Such is life. . .

thesinger

edit: I just got home from a ROCKIN’ evening of volleyball. Hobbs got it together and the level of playing was WOW!!!! Perhaps the most fun volleyball I’ve played in who-knows-how-long. Just WOW!!

life

What a boring title!! What were you THINKING John, for doing such a boring title. Ah vell!

This morning was great. Actually, School this morning was great. Actually, Choir in school this morning was great! Mr. Stutzman is teaching Choir at PCHS. WHAT A DEAL SAID EDWARD PEAL!!!!! It is good.

I am not feeling very inspired. I am not feeling very inspired at all. I think I am far too tired to really enjoy this friday night. I have the feeling I will either drink some caffinated beverage and stay up half the night, or barely survive until I get to crawl into my bed. What joy you are hearing from these tired lips. (haha) I never thought that the joy would be this real, this late into the evening. (haha, again)

thesinger

My Constipated/Tired Brain

Yeah, I was just noticing how constipated my brain has become. I have not worked my brain very hard since school has let out. I think less and less of important issues in my life, mostly since the vast majority of my awake time is spent at Miller Seed Farms doing physical labor. Do I like the break from thinking and learning? Is it good for me? Is it right for my energies to be focused towards my work? I do realize that most of my life will be spent pursuing a living of some kind. How will I train myself to think even while I am focused on a different goal, the goal of survival. I don’t know this.

At the end of a hard day of work, my tired body/brain does not feel like taking time to think about hard-to-grasp ideas, personal “hot topics”, or church issues. Is this normal? Should it be this way? Is there a better way?

I have come to appreciate school because it’s an excellent way to force myself to think. But I only have one year of school left before I finish high school. I won’t be able to have school as my crutch forever and ever.

In conclusion, I will have to teach myself to think, even when most of my physical efforts will be devoted to surviving on this complicated earth. Could anyone out there who is older and wiser shed some light on this topic? I would appreciate any and all thoughts that you might have.

thesinger

Saturday (and Friday)

This is something I wrote to my brother on Saturday night–with some omissions. 🙂 Hope this gives you a glimpse into my weekend. 🙂

We are like having a killer time here in Copeland. Lots of volleyball,
some basketball, and of course, great times with the kids/teachers here.

We came here on Friday noon. I personally spent the afternoon reading
“Babbitt,” a rather boring interesting book by Sinclair Lewis. Anyway,
good times, good times. Spent today (Sat.) alternately working for Floyd
and playing some basketball. Mowed perhaps half the lawn around here with
a slow and very small push mower. It took me two and a half hours to mow
what I could normally mow in 15 minutes with our Grasshopper. (It’s has a
22 inch deck versus a 60 inch deck.)

This evening we went to a new German joint in Sublette. They had no
atmosphere, but good food, so I guess that made up for the lack of
atmosphere. Who knows. Just got home from the gym where we were playing
volleyball and basketball. Melody played basketball with us. She is a
really intense player. Reminds me so much of Jana when she is tense. Just
amazing.

So, it is 10:38 PM, and I am about ready to hit the sack (sortof). I hope
to do some reading as well. I am not sure how the last two sentences
resolve very well. Perhaps the “(sortof)” ties it together. I don’t know.

thesinger

Saturday. (for lack of a better name for this post)

But to really tell the story of today best, we will have to back up to the events of yesterday.

First of all, my sister and I were forced by the authorities to give the program at the 4-H Program last night. This wouldn’t be so bad except for the random fact that when you say something in public, you better have something prepared and practiced up because if you don’t, bad things might happen. So, I was forced to come home from school right away (and miss 45+ min. of basketball) just because I had to practice the program thingy. That gave me something to be bitter about. 😦

Another thing that I had to do was be the president and chair the 4-H meeting. I am not the elected Pres. or even the elected Vice-Pres., but merely the Parliamentarian. (Both the Pres. and the Vice-Pres. were gone.) Chairing the meeting wasn’t a bad experience, but merely something else to do and when I have too many things to do at the same time or when I am behind schedule for anything, I can become very irate and tensed up.

After the meeting, I went over and joined Jacinda’s “Graduation” party. It was at the Partridge Grade school. The main attraction was the gym which is big enough to stretch two volleyball nets across it. The volleyball was surprisingly good even if the oldest player was 18 years of age. Good times. Good times.

I then went home and moved my sweaty, tired, and exhausted body into the shower which was an extremely refreshing experience. I then decided that since it was Friday night and that I could supposedly sleep late in the morning, I would read a book for a very long time. I did.

The main problem was that at 8:45 AM, Daddy comes into my room, wakes me from my deep sleep, and asks me the simple question, “Did you remember that you have to go to the Goat Tagging between eight and ten o’clock?” To say the least, I was rather disgusted at my forgetfulness. If I had remembered in the previous evening, I would not have read nearly as long into the night, and I would have woke up myself instead of making Daddy wake me up.

Anyway, the goat tagging was not a very painful experience (at least not for me 😉 and took me about an hour from the time I woke up till the time I was at home again.

The next thing on the agenda was brunch. My dear Mom fixed up one of her wonderful Pancake and Sausage Gravy breakfasts which was a delightful dining experience. I made the amazing discovery that strawberries and maple syrup make a wonderful topping for a lonely pancake when it’s sitting there, just waiting for a hungry little boy to eat it up. 🙂

Unfortunately, we have a tradition at my house that dictates that we have to work on Saturdays. Generally this work consists of yard work or washing vehicles. Today, it was composed of cleaning up a mess that had been created several Saturdays ago when we had replaced the roof on our garage. We basically had to sweep the garage out but while we were out there anyway, we did some general straightening up and sorting of accumulated junk.

At about 1:00 PM, I was in the mood to go join a football game that was supposed to start at 1:00. But, we weren’t completely finished with cleaning up the garage, so, I helped finish cleaning the garage and then went to join the game.

It was a fairly good game, even though there wasn’t exactly a surplus of guys. The largest the teams got were 5 against 4. I guess that is the way life is sometimes. 😦

I came home and showered, because activities such as running around, tackling guys, and heaving an oblong ball around, all in semi-humid weather is something that can make a person very grimy. 🙂

I then messed around with some car speakers that we found in the junk out in the garage. I soldered them to a headphone jack with hopes of using them as speakers for our desktop. Alas, it was not to be. (Btw, I really like that last phrase! Very poetic! Such sadness, such feeling!) In other words, they didn’t work. They did put out some sound but unfortunately it resembled the same kind of volume that most headphones can put out–not very much.

The main event of the evening was supper at the homeless shelter. Ok, so it’s not as bad it sounds, but it is what they call themselves. 🙂 This homeless shelter consists mostly of the Joe Yoder residence. You may be wondering why in the world they open themselves up to the orphans in the community for Saturday evening pizza. I wish I knew as well. But I don’t. Or you may be wondering why in the world I am an orphan. Thankfully, I am only a weekend orphan because Mom, Dad, and Anja went to Copeland for the weekend. So, that is why I was at the homeless shelter for the evening.

On the way home, I was inspired to stop at a friends residence just for the kicks of it. So I did. Shane was the only dude at home, so we did some cutting of fat after which I came home and messed around on the computer and drooled over the sound system in the livingroom and wishing that it were in my room downstairs and have also been writing a mega-long post which has taken me about a very long time to compose.

I need to go. Thanks for listening to the weekend tales of a very busy junior in high school who loves his God, his friends, and also his blog. 🙂 (The weekend should also have been in that list but I don’t feel like going back and adding it now.)

Peace out to all,

thesinger

I have eight min. to post

Alas, we have revival meetings at church this week, and so, I am really missing my leisurely evenings at home. Ah vell, I guess, those are just what I would call, “Creature Comforts” and aren’t really necessary. Elmer Glick, from “Almost Heaven,” is our speaker. So far, it has been good and I have high hopes for the rest of the week.

My sister and I each bought a meat goat for a 4-H project this afternoon. They are some hunky little fellows. They should do very well at our County Fair this fall.

Also on my “burner” is the “everlasting” school. It does get old at times. . .

thesinger

ps. It took me seven.