Finals

The last week of school for the year was finals, and all of mine were scheduled in the first two days.  That meant that I was totally done with school by Tuesday of that week, and most other events and organizations were finished to make time for students studying and writing final papers.  But my Dad wasn't scheduled to come pick me and my stuff up until the following weekend.  So I had three or four days free, to spend however I wanted, with no more homework or other responsibilities to deal with.  Most other people were busy with finals or leaving early as they finished.

But there were two girls I was friends with, who lived at the end of the hall, that were from out of state.  They were both in the same position I was, since their flights had to be booked weeks before the finals schedule was released.  They had both been in Humtut with me, and Moriah had helped me make the T-Shirts for that class, while Lindsay had done a lot of church stuff with me in Lord of Life.  So I spent most of that week in their room, helping them box up and ship all of their belongings, and just otherwise hanging out.  It was probably the most extended unstructured social experience of my life to that point.  I greatly enjoyed it, but it was also quite stressful at times.

I had never spent that much time with any female before, and there I was with two attractive girls for most of the week.  So I was kind of on overload, trying to adjust to that situation.  I had numerous one-on-one talks with each, about all sorts of topics.  I learned a lot about developing close non-romantic relationships with females, which is probably good prerequisite experience for developing strong romantic ones.  It is ironic that being in that situation wouldn’t even faze me now, but I guess that just goes to show how much I have grown and changed in the last ten years.

I also spent time with a variety of other people that I had gotten to know over the course of the year.  A large group of us walked to the nearest shopping center to go out to dinner one of those evenings, since the single characteristic that had united us to that point, was that none of us had cars, and usually were “stuck” on campus all the time.  It was a pretty good week all around, and I probably learned more in that week than I did from any class I took.

My Dad showed up on Saturday, we loaded up all of my earthly possessions, and I was on my way back to NorCal for the summer.  And that summer would be a whole new adventure, to grow and stretch me, both socially and spiritually.