Year Challenge Goals: The Dating Game

I completed my second year challenge in the first week of June!

That was it for the year challenges.

What do I do now??

(Not like getting my first job and moving wouldn't be challenges of this year... But I will save that for another post.)

Going on a date was not as hard as I thought it would be, but it was definitely different than I thought it would be. Since June, I have been on a number of dates and its amazing to me how quickly people come into and leave out of a person's life. The first date was on frisbee golf course and neither of us made a lot of good goals. Unfortunately the relationship that has developed through the dating I have done will not last very long, but it was good for me personally. I grew and learned that there is a lot of variety and its amazing how much a single trait can color and change the way a relationship between two people develops and works (or doesn't work). I look forward to continuing to date in the future. I do not know what will happen when I move, but I think that whatever happens will be interesting. 

Look out! ;)

The Rocks of Israel

I finally made it to Israel.
(And I'm finally making it around to writing about Israel...)

Despite all the road blocks and the frustrations, it was totally worth it. The trip was amazing to say the least. There is something about visiting a land that you have read about for decades and finally seeing and feeling it. 

The mountains are steeper than I imagined. 

The landscape changes faster than I could have thought possible.

Despite so much tension, people are still people and daily life must go on. 

The group I was with was from across the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and England. I learned just as much from the group of people I was with as from the course director about the land of Israel. I probably could have learned more from the director of the course, however there is only so much information I can retain after eight hours in the hot sun looking at tan stones. And pretty much everything was made of tan stones. Houses, churches, synagogues, graves, walls, mosaics, they were all made of tan stones.

The Dome of the Rock

The Garden of Gethsemane 

Tan and olive. The olive trees looked exactly like I had always been told and I ate a lot of olives. I almost like olives after the trip. 

Not surprisingly, I gathered a lot of rocks from Israel. I also brought back broken pottery and some souvenirs naturally. The rock collection comes from the Jordan River, the Judean wilderness, Masada, Qumran, the Sea of Galilee, and lots of other places that touched my heart in ways I cannot fully describe.

The Church of All Nations

 This trip will enrich my spirituality for years to come. My understanding of the bible has shifted, not dramatically, but enough to be noticeable and enough to change my understanding of humanity.  

I will pray for everyone in Israel and Palestine for the rest of my life.

Year Challenge Goals: The Triathlon

I am going to try a triathlon.
Next weekend.
In Alabama.

Yes.
Swimming, biking, running.
All together.
Very quickly.
With a crowd of other people.
Early in the morning.


I am aware that in this, as well as maybe other aspects of my life, I am crazy.


However, it has actually been some fun. It has been amazingly tiring. And my body has never been as sore before in my life. But, I am connecting to my community as never before, and learning so many new things. My thank you have to go out to most of the Sewanee community. Between supplying me with equipment and coaching and encouragement, I would never have been able to do this for the first time without y'all.

It is amazing to think that in high school I actually day dreamed about doing a triathlon. I was much heavier then (by about 70 lbs!), and triathlons involve running, and I was firmly against running. For this bookworm, sweating was totally disgusting. It might be an understatement now to say that I have gotten used to sweating.

However, I learned somewhere in the last year about life challenge goals and so I set myself two for this year. The first is to complete a triathlon. Hopefully next Saturday I will do this. My goal simply is to finish. The second goal that I set for myself this year is to go on a date. I have decided that it doesn't even have to be a good date as long as it is actually a date.

Honestly, I am not sure which is going to be harder.
I have spent four months now training almost every day for this triathlon. Yet, thinking about trying to find a date has been scarier than thinking about swimming, biking, and running for more than three hours on a Saturday morning.

Either way, I am looking forward to accomplishing both of these challenge goals this year.

If anyone I know in Southern Tennessee or Alabama is looking for something to do next Saturday and needs some inspiration, come see me cross the finish line! It will be quite the sight to see. ;)

What Actually Happened

Okay, so there wasn't any baby hugging or town hall meetings, and there was minimal hand shaking, but in our little world of a blue Subaru, Yoda and I did run for the presidency. We did so by adding a spin to the traditional license plate game. In our version we didn't just see how many different state plates we could spot, but for each new state we came across we would award ourselves that state's number of electoral votes. Then, when our electoral vote count reach 270, we would declare ourselves President and Vice President elect.

We did this for each full day of driving during our trip (6 total).

Unsurprisingly, or maybe not given who was running, we won every travel day! Of course, being us, we kept the data on which states we won each day, and then made some lovely graphs! Enjoy!

My Fellow Americans!

Four Score and Seven, uh, days* ago, Master Yoda and myself devised a plan.
March 14, 2014, a day which will live in (not) infamy, we carried out that plan and ventured across this vast country of ours, shaking hands, hugging babies, and holding town hall meetings in order to achieve one thing: a Presidential Victory! We set out with an abundance of courage and determination; of confidence in our platform and of the conviction in the American people to do what is right. Our platform is as follows (spoken softly but while carrying big sticks):

1. Anti-poverty: We don't like poverty because, well, who does?
2. Pro-education: Rarely is the question asked: "Is our children learning"?
3. Redistribute defense budget: Some old guy told us to watch out for this "military-industrial complex" thing.
4. NASA: Because where would we be without memory foam mattresses and water filters?
5. Abolitionists: If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.
6. Agriculture reform: Because soy subsidies are forcing innocent people to eat chicken curry in an Texas Arby's.
7. Heath care reform: Dude, that system is broken.

These are not Republican issues. These are not Democratic issues. These are American issues. We must reach across the aisle to be successful. Which is why we ran as Independents. (Also, there was a little mishap with getting our paperwork through, so we were also write-ins).

America, indeed, you have nothing to fear but fear itself as you have shown in voting for us time and again (because then either you truly have no fear, or are crazy).

God Bless America!

* Approximately