SENIOR YEAR

I just started my SENIOR year in college.  How is that even possible!? The very last year of school I will (most likely) ever have. It's strange that after 16 years of starting a new grade every fall, this is it. The end.

But also the beginning. I can't wait to see what this year holds, and am so excited to begin life after school. It's scary, exhilarating, nerve-racking, and completely crazy to think about, but I feel ready for it. In my mind it's going to be like jumping out of a plane, (speaking of which, when can I sign up to do that again?) a small, rickety, plane that's got one way up and then a leap of faith. I'm ready to free fall wherever God takes me.

After my exciting internship in Colorado with the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park this summer, it feels so great reconnecting with everyone and seeing how much I've grown as a PR student. (Read my Colorado blog here)

The year is already off to a great start. I live with 3 of my best friends and we've already had a heck of an awesome, laughter-filled, walmart-running, deep-talking, loud-singing time. I'm working as a lab attendant in the Reynolds computer lab (and it hasn't been busy at all yet, so essentially I'm getting paid to work on my homework). I'm activities director for Chi Omega Pi, and my co-director and I have been up to some fantastic function scheming. I'm also the Public Relations chair for the Relay for Life Executive committee, and am super excited to be taking on a role that will help out a cause that I love and give me great PR practice and experience.

The classes I'm taking are pretty much the bomb:

• Communication Law with Doc Shock
• Christian View of Media Ethics with Miller & Baker
• Radio Production with Dutch
• Copy Editing
• Missionary Anthropology
• Tennis (for the 3rd time because I love it!) 

Aside from the 3 hour Copy Editing night class, (which wouldn't be bad if it were just an hour every other day) my class schedule is great.

The ChiO devo directors recently had a prayer night last weekend where they lit candles in Shores chapel and set up prayer stations for us to go around. At one of the stations were the most beautiful prayers from Saints.

My favorite is one by St. Francis of Assissi called Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace:

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace;

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is discord, harmony;

Where there is error, truth;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek

To be consoled as to console;

To be understood as to understand;

To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

That's my prayer this semester. To be that Instrument of Peace to friends I visit with, new ChiO members I meet, teachers I have class with, strangers who are struggling.

That prayer night was the perfect opportunity for me to think about this semester and all I hope to accomplish. While it was a slight adjustment coming back to Searcy, Arkansas where we go to Walmart on the weekends for fun instead of climbing mountains and jumping out of airplanes, I'm excited to see where God will be moving this semester.

Stay tuned.

xoxo

Reunited with my ChiOs and it feels so good.