1...2...3 T-BIRD!

Sorry for the delay fans. Guess what? I live in Arizona now! The funniest thing happened yesterday. I was on facebook and it showed me a post I had put exactly one year ago. The status update read “First Sabbath at camp…going for a hike” It’s mind blowing to think that only a year ago I was hiking it up in Oregon and now a Sabbath one year later I’m an Athletic Director, PE/Health, class sponsor, and volleyball coach. Mind-blowing! I even have a new name (not that kind of name change, still single) students call me Miss L or Coach. Second mind blow!

I can’t remember if I blogged about my birthday this past February, but I remember talking with someone about how 24 was my year. I could just feel it. Not simply because it’s my favorite number (GO Gordon) I just had a feeling. The feeling has turned into new opportunities, leaps of faith, tears, smiles, frustration, and utter joy.

Thunderbird (T-Bird) Adventist Academy is where I reside now. I love that Thunderbirds nickname is T-Bird because it makes me feel like I’m living in the movie Grease. I should be walking around in a Pink Ladies jacket singing, “You’re the one that I want” or racing Grease Lightening.

Now that the musical is over, I really am having a once in a lifetime experience here. It feels like only 10 days ago I drove Olga the Oldsmobile over the speed bumps and made a left onto the celery green doored campus. Oh wait; it has only been 10 days! Lol Since day one the staff have been so supportive and understanding. Seems like 10 is the number around here because that’s the number of new staff. It helps that I knew some people. The Chaplain/Bible teacher went to Southern with me, and the English teacher is a family friend from Massachusetts. They have been my questions answerer people, support, mentor, and vocabulary bank for the boarding school lingo. I’d never heard words “social” “split schedule” or  “supervision team”. As far as I was concerned “social” meant being a social person and talking to people. It means the exact opposite to be “on social”. “Split schedule” to me was not having class everyday, nope, I have classes’ everyday, and a “supervision team” was something required at a mosh pit to make sure people didn’t kill each other. (I wouldn’t know because I’ve never moshed but it makes sense).

One thing I do know for sure is that I will finally…excuse me FINALLY FINALLY have my own place. I have to wait 30 days but it will totally be worth it. I’m going to be living in a 2 bed 1 bath duplex a hop, skip, and a jump away from T-Bird in faculty housing. Which in itself is awesome because mostly all the staff lives in faculty housing. I hope to have game nights and people over for dinner. There are so many staff kids I’m thinking of starting a babysitting service in the summer when school is out. Back to the best part that I will have my OWN PLACE! It’s been a long time coming. I’ll catch you guys up that don’t know my housing history. Went to Southern, lived in dorm for 2 years, lived in Southern Village (still college housing) 2 years. Then I moved off campus the last year but didn’t even put pictures on the walls I shard with 4 other girls because I knew I was graduating and leaving. My internship in Oregon had me living between a room in the director’s house in Stayton, to a cabin at camp. NOW present day, I’m living in the dorm again. WOW lol that was anticlimactic, looks like I’m back where I started…but I’m SO not. Living in the dorm isn’t the worst. I really like and get along with the Girls Dean (which is nice because originally she was suppose to be my boss), and I get to know the girls better because I see them in and out of class. The only thing I don’t want them to see me in is my towel. It’s become a stealth mission for me to get out of the shower room and down the hall to #102 without hearing a “morning Miss L”. The thought of me traumatizing a poor freshman girl because she saw her PE teacher in a towel on more then one occasion is frightening even to me, and I’m the one in the towel!

In all seriousness, life is good and more than that GOD IS GOOD. He knew I needed a job, He knew I needed to be supported by my bosses, and that I needed to be challenged. I’ve been all those things and much more. Even though it’s be hard and probably the most scary experience of my life, I wouldn’t change a thing. I wouldn’t even change the time I asked a Hispanic student if he had left his Spanish book in the gym. (He is clearly fluent in Spanish). But that’s a story for another time.

I will write again soon, if the heat doesn’t roast, toast, and burn me to the sidewalk first.