Live, laugh, love

It's amazing how fast 9 weeks can fly...and yet I've become so comfortable here that I feel like I've been here forever. What a whirlwind of everyday events and happenings: homework and classes, friends, work, ups and downs, trials and challenges, blessings and good memories made.

I'm taking four courses currently (as of Monday the 8th of March): film history, film aesthetics, spanish, and Biblical background and interpretation. The latter two are 8-week, the first two are 16-week. In both of the film classes we have ginormous group projects looming over our heads that, frankly, have me terrified. As a class, we are collaborating on creating a real documentary about the history of film, from it's earliest beginnings in the late 1800s to the present. Each subgroup has an short era to cover; my group is covering early French filmmakers the Lumiere brothers and Georges Melies: their contribution to the art of cinema and also a critical examination of Melies' short films. Our dean is trying to get Regent University its own channel on www.hulu.com, where the school can feature the completed documentary when it is finished (which will take a while; there is too much cinema history for one class to cover sufficiently, so future Film History and Film Aesthetics students under Prof. Keuthan will be finishing it in the next couple of years probably) as well as other selected student projects. My prof even briefly mentioned submitting the documentary to student film festivals. Needless to say, expectations are high and I feel very inexperienced and unprepared!

My time at Regent so far has been extremely challenging and even a little unsettling, in both good and bad ways. I'm having to reevaluate myself again and again and lately have been wrestling with difficult questions about life and the future, where I'm at and where I am going. I've become aware of the sheer number of decisions I'm going to have to make in the very near future about the summer, next year, and even the year after that and I feel like so many things are up in the air right now. Learning to trust God while I'm praying for wisdom and examining options has been harder than I thought it would be, but it's been good. He's been walking with me every step of the way, but I'm still trying to hear exactly what He is saying.

Today marks the second to last day of spring break for us students. (It's kind of the last day for me because I work all day tomorrow). So, I made cinnamon rolls just a few minutes ago and am going to go be neighborly and "go visitin'" in a few minutes :-)

Most students went home for spring break, but those of us who stayed had a great time! I went with some of my closer friends to Williamsburg last Tuesday, and Thursday we had a LATE game and movie night. We were up until 3 in the morning, but hey, it's spring break.

Here are a few photos of the past month or so: (not in chronological order!)

Williamsburg:

Lauren (lives across the hall from me) holding British flag:



Me examining a broom for sale in the gift shop:


Lauren and me in the stocks:

Winter Jam tour rock concert Wednesday night. Ah, so fun!

Me with my buddies Rickie and Armeka (at someone else's birthday party):

Jammin' after quiet hours (don't tell the RA!):

Heidi and I worked on a student film set one Thursday morning:

Now I've gotta go be neighborly and go share those cinnamon rolls!