It's been a month and a half since I last wrote something to my friends. (I promise this won't be over 5,000 words. Excess happens sometimes, right?) There's been a few notable events recently, but there hasn't been much to get me to stop my day to write about. Junior year started and my free time ended with it, so I've been hopelessly busy as of late. I'll try and sum up six weeks in a few paragraphs (with bullet points, as always) as best as I can.
- The most important development of my third year at Tennessee so far has been this: I'm currently on a streak of seventeen straight weekdays where I have spent at least 90 minutes in Hodges Library. This is why free time does not exist for me anymore. It's been good for productivity and/or creativity (my daydreams are way more adventurous) and/or my impending death in a library.
- The actual most important development of my third year is my leadership role in CRU, the ministry I've attended and worked with since my first semester here. I'm co-leading a Bible study in Clement Hall with my close friend and former roommate, Blake, and it's been nothing short of incredible so far. Every time I get to see the guys from Clement, I'm blown away at what God is doing through the study and how much he has blessed me with the opportunity to get to do life together with freshmen (and sophomores and juniors) this year.
- My new apartment in the Maplehurst community this year is solid. It's a lot less hectic and much more fun than the house formerly known as Neverland. Also, the view is incredible. (And no, the name is no longer the Underground Railroad.)
- I do this every time, so I might as well get the list out of the way now. The Official List of Songs I Liked Over the Last Month or Two:
- HAIM, "Don't Save Me"
- Arcade Fire, "Reflektor"
- Modest Mouse, "Interstate 8"
- Gregory Alan Isakov, "Big Black Car"
- William Fitzsimmons, "Passion Play"
- Mark Foster, "Warrior"
- San Cisco, "Fred Astaire"
- BRUCE, "Growin' Up"
- Young Galaxy, "Come and See" (from the film The Way Way Back)
- Rend Collective Experiment, "Come On"
- Today at work, I had the opportunity to help a kid with his Religion homework, which went over Genesis 1-3. We went through the chapters together and discussed it in-depth; I can't describe how awesome and rewarding it is to have a job that gives me opportunities like this. The Lord is doing some really great stuff through SHCS.
- This semester, I've already made lots of new friends (my mother would be so proud) through several different things: CRU, my job, classes, random encounters, and more. Life is really fun right now, even though...
- ...I haven't been this stressed at any point that I can remember. I discussed the idea of "wanting wind to blow" in my last post, but I'm not sure I was prepared for a semester like this one so far. As I mentioned before, my free time doesn't exist and all of my time is either spent on campus or at work. It's crazy, wild, and anxiety-inducing, but I kind of love it. Stress is actually a welcome thing for me now in some ways, especially when it's because of courses that I'm enjoying.
- My biggest achievement this semester (other than tricking people into thinking I'm not really strange and the really weird time I made the highest score in my Spanish class on our first exam?) has been consciously cutting down on swearing. Aside from the occasional outburst (in the Warren household, we call these "Michigan games"), progress is being made.
- I keep talking/tweeting/tumbling/other media-ing about mine and JL's rap project. There's been a major development recently that I can only share basics about. Here are three things you need to know: it's a trilogy of mixtapes, the first mixtape is titled Hood Rich (near-completion), and we have cover art (all I can say is that it's very name-appropriate) that I'll post whenever we can figure out a release date.
- I have no idea when I'll post next, so Tigers over Braves in six. I'll be at the parade two days later.
Will
