Katie's take on college life: College update

Well, I'm about halfway through the semester of my sophomore year. This year has been a huge growing time for me in my life. I've encountered some hardships and challenges that have really stretched me. The first few weeks of school were rough because of the passing of my grandpa and the declining health of my grandma Hamlin. I felt very torn because I knew I needed to be at school and focus on school and soccer but my heart was at home with my family. Now there are some days that are harder than others, but it has definitely made me treasure my family so much more than I already did.

Soccer has been going pretty well. We went undefeated in conference for the third year in a row and now we are starting the conference championship. While I'm not where I want to be skill wise, I am still forever thankful for the program and the experiences and awesome girls I get to play and live with. We've had a very successful season so far and we are really hoping to make a great run in the national tournament.

This year I moved out of the traditional dorm room and into what SAU calls the village. I'm rooming with two other soccer girls. Each suite has two rooms, two beds in each room, attached to a bathroom. Our fourth roommate transferred so there are only three of us. We put all four beds and our desks in one room and have the other room as a living room. In there we have a couch, a futon, a lazyboy, a lounge seat, three mini fridges, and a tv. It's a pretty nice set up :)

This semester as far as my class schedule goes has been very monotonous. Monday, Wednesday, Friday I pretty much do the same thing everyday and then Tuesday and Thursday I do the same thing every day. While it may be very routine, luckily I am enjoying the content of most of my classes and I am learning a lot of new information, some of which still goes over my head sometimes in my junior/senior classes. A lot of what I'm learning this year is about the early church and all the doctrines that were being formed so I am discovering to really know my beliefs and form my own opinions about the Bible and the church.

Also because of my major, I have to have a supervised ministry this year (ministry lingo for an internship). Last year I started going to a church in Jackson and really liked it there and thought it did a great job of serving the community so I chose to do my ministry there. I'm interning with their women's/connections pastor. I try to go into church once a week to get a better sense of more of the behind the scenes stuff that goes on daily, then I go in early Sunday and participate in both services. The church is fairly large, with about 1400 people attending between the two services. What this means for me is that each week I am constantly meeting new people. I love it, the church is so loving and puts so much emphasis on helping the community which is one of the things that drew me to it last year.

As always, this semester has flown by and I know the next few weeks are just going to go by even faster. This was pretty much just a quick overview of my school life so far this year. I'm hoping to sometime have more time to go deeper with what's been going on in my life but for now this will have to do. I just thought I would share kinda what my semester looks like so people back at home know I'm still alive and well :)