Wednesday, July 1, 2009

A new month, a new experiment - Blogorama ding dong!

Today is the first day of July, and the rainy summer of 2009 continues! There are so many threads going on in my life, in these few minutes before I scoot over to work, I will give the 411. What the heck am I up to? Where am I going? What do I spend my time doing, and most importantly what is God showing me during these rainy days?

Well I am living with my brother Ryan and his roommate Leif in Quincy, MA. It is great fun living with Ryan again after 7 years. Last summer I lived by myself in a ghetto rented room in Taunton. I learned that I desperately need relationships to enjoy life. Sure introversion has its time and place, but last summer my introversion was more like an intro-plosion.

I am living here waiting for August 21st. On August 21st I will be leaving to volunteer at the African Nazarene University in Nairobi, Kenya. It has been a long process so far, one that is far from over. I will be spending 3 months working for their student development office, as well as apprenticing with their electricians (a different perspective on my EE degree, I know. I welcome the difference.) I am also open to the idea of staying longer (up to 6 months) if workable opportunities for service present themselves.

I am preparing financially, working at the friendly neighborhood Hannaford grocery store as a friendly neighborhood (but slightly incompetant) cashier. I will be working for the Center for Academic Services at ENC in the next few weeks, and I have been picking up various odd jobs, baby sitting the oh-so-dashing Allen Plante or slaving for the less-than-dashing Karl Giberson. :)

It is also a goal of mine to prepare for my trip professionally, making contacts with folks at various companies so that the obligatory 3 month period of painful job hunting is blunted a little on my return. I will also be rocking various MATLAB projects and programming ventures while at ANU. If I decide to pick up HTML, I assure you that Ardrey Blog 2.0 will be totally rocking.

First and foremost I see this summer as a time to prepare spiritually for what should be a life transforming experience in Kenya. I have been reading alot, and welcome any suggestions for books on spiritual growth, leadership and devotion. Also, I would love to hear of any suggestions for books about Africa...fiction, history, current events - I'm not picky!

I am super excited that this blog is now in opporations. I will give me a reason to do things I want to do, but sometimes fail to. It will hopefully allow people to keep up with me, and keep us all connected! That is so important, connection. I hope to make this blog enjoyable to read, and consistent enough so I can establish the habit for my trip to Africa. Until then, I hope you enjoy reading about my no-less-real, but far less grand adventures in Quincy!

No comments:

Post a Comment