Catching up with an Old Friend... A summer blessing... And a book

My favorite part of the summer is getting a chance to catch up with friends who I have lost contact with over the last few months. There are those friends who you loose contact with over the years but are always there for you. On this occasion I was excited to catch up with her but didn't really except to have the great conversation that I had. It came at just the right time too. You know how when you you and a friend both have busy lives doing amazing things (trying to change the world and everything haha just kidding) but anyway then when you finally have the time to catch up its like amazing. Catching up with this friend I walked away like God was really present. I really enjoy friends who you can openly share about your faith journey with. We both have a servants heart I feel like just wanting what is best for others and always trying to put others before myself. 

We shared about the ups and downs we have had since last talking to each other and what our next year has in store for us. She just graduated and is now going to start a year of service. Wherever God places her the people there will be so blessed by her presence. She is off to her summer job till she starts her year of service in the fall so I am not sure when I will get to see her next but I sure enjoyed our visit. Its those moments when your not always expecting it God graces in some special way. 

My friend before she left dropped by a book. She gave me the book Adam to read this summer. It is written by Henry Nouwen. I cannot wait to get further into it! It is amazing the impact a book can make on a person.  On the topics of books Rockhurst has selected some really good books the past few years for the Freshman reading books two of my favorites from past years have been. 

For a full listing of the books that Rockhurst has used in the past years for the Freshman Common Reading book check out this link: http://www.rockhurst.edu/student-experience/first-year-experience/theme-book/ 

The book for this year is The Freshman Survival Guide - Nora Bradbury-Haehl & Bill McGarvey. Are there any incoming freshman reading this blog who have read it? I will be curious to see how all the incoming freshman like the book. 

Rockhurst really tries to incorporate the freshman book throughout the year so I am really excited to see how they plan on doing it this year. 

I always like to end with a quote: This is a long one but I really like it so enjoy! 

In solitude we can listen to the voice of Him who spoke to us  before we could speak a word, who healed us before we could make any gesture to help, who set us free long before we could free others, and who loved us long before we could give love to anyone.  It is in this solitude that we discover that being is more important than having, and that we are worth more than the results of our efforts.  In solitude we discover that our life is not a possession to be defended, but a gift to be shared.  It's there we recognize that the healing words we speak are not just our own but are given to us; that the love we can express is part of a greater love; and that the new life we bring forth is not a property to cling to, but a gift to be received. (from Mornings with Henri Nouwen).

I am always curious to see who is reading my blog! Please feel free to comment if so inspired. 

New Look to the RU Magazine

Hi All,

Hope everyone's week is going good. The rain seems like it will never stop here. Some areas of Chicago got nailed with 3-6 inches of rain we only got an inch today but never fear we have gotten a lot of rain other days lately. I think it has rained everyday this week and every other day last week. One of my highlights of the day was going for a bike ride with a good friend from high school. We went on a new part of the trail they had built along the river that runs through our hometown. Total I think we went like 16 miles.

By the way look at the picture below what we got in the mail today! The newly redesigned Rockhurst University Magazine!  (YEAH sorry the picture is sideways).

Jealous you didn't get a copy? Have you gotten yours yet? What are your thoughts? Well you can always read the online version of the magazine. The link: http://issuu.com/rockhurst/docs/rumagazinesummer2013?e=7081428/3718317

Ohh and did you check out the answer RU Video Promo that came out the other week... and guess who is in the Hawk Costume?? ME! 

http://vimeo.com/68231897 

More highlights from my week will be coming soon! Maybe tomorrow if I have time! 

Life...

Hi All,

Hope everyone is enjoying the summer! The weather has been fairly cool here in Chicago so far this summer. As is the theme across the Midwest there has been a lot of rain this summer. It seems like it is raining here every other day. I went for a bike ride the other day with a with my friend from high school and we made it the first 8 miles without rain then the heaves just opened up and it started to rain. We ended up going for like a 16 mile bike ride. It was great. I love long bike rides. In the recent years they have added a lot of bike trails around Naperville where I live.

On the topic of biking. A few of my friends at Rockhurst have bikes. Kansas City is a great biking city. They have the Trolley trail which I have talked about before in my blogs. I have run over half of it and I love it most of my runs at school consist of at least part or all of it on the Trolley trail. It is a limestone trail which is nice and softer but the water from heavy rains does not drain off as fast. There is also a bike nonprofit across the street from Rockhurst where if you volunteer for them 10 hours you get a free bike. They collect old bikes and take them apart and build new bikes. It is really awesome!

Here is a picture!


It was really fun catching up with my friend. She is an RA so it was nice to talk about the world of working for Residence Life. It is funny how similar the programs are run and how easily you can relate your jobs to one another. Like how checkout works and how some RA's end up helping other RA's with their end of the year paperwork. We also talked about the future and graduate schools. It is amazing how fast college has flown by. I commented to her Senior year of college after senior year of high school. Applying for Graduate Schools.

Anyway I am enjoying an evening NCIS with my Dad

Happy Father's day weekend to all men out there. We are called to be fathers in some way.




Let's all find someone to believe in. It is the greatest gift possible.

Graduated

Hi everyone, hope everyone's week is going good!  This past weekend was my youngest sisters graduation party. It was a lot of fun. We had family come in from Kansas City, Omaha, South Bend, Greendale, WI and Indianapolis. We had all kinds of food at the party. My sisters and my mom homemade all kinds of desserts.

It was great to see all my extended family that came in for the part. It is hard to believe that my baby sister has graduated. It was great to see her so excited and so excite to move onto the next phase of her life. Currently as I write this my sister is going through her orientation at another Jesuit School, this one is here in the Chicago area.

We kept watching the weather for the party and there was always a thirty percent chance of rain. All week it stayed at a 30% chance. When the party started it was a little cloudy but it looked like the rain would hold off then about 2 hours into party I walk outside and I turn my head and see this sheet of raining coming down  and before I could even walk back into it started absolutely pouring. It wasn't like it started to drizzle before hand. It was as if the heavens just opened and poured down. We probably got 3/4th's of an inch of rain that afternoon. None the less the rain did not spoil the party. It was a great weekend with family.

Now I finally feel like I have started to settle into a bit of a summer routine. I am not one who needs a routine everyday but it is nice to have a routine that you can at least work from. I do work side jobs for neighbors during my free time so that always manages to keep me busy between them and my part time internship.

Two good quotes I found. Hope one of them you find good!

Its been a while...

Okay, Now after a few week break I am back at it blogging away. I will try to do a few entries this week to catch up since the end of the school year.

The last weekend of school as part of my job with the office of Residence Life I helped to close up the Residence Halls. It is always crazy to see how fast the campus can get so quiet. I have to admit it is kind of fun for a day being on a quiet campus. All the busyness died down and all the stuff had stuff to do just no one was in a rush which was so nice and peaceful. While I was around I helped out at the Mass that is always held on the friday before graduation and then I helped out at graduation that Saturday. One of the secondary reasons I helped out with graduation was that then I got to see how it all works for next year and tell my parents what to expect. Being the oldest I have always experience events like graduations first in our family. On the Sunday after graduation I helped to move all the senior out of the on campus housing and then in the evening the office of Residence Life takes the staff out for dinner to celebrate a year of hard week. In a way it was a little sad this was my second and last year working for Residence Life. In a way it will be nice because I do have my internship at Nonprofit Leadership Alliance planning their annual conference to take place in January 2014 in Chicago!

After the weekend moving others out it came time to move out my self. On monday I had dinner with one of my wonderful friends and headed back to Chicago. I took a different way back since I was going to stop and see my sister at Bradley University and help her pack up some of her larger objects. It was nice to get a change of scenery on the way back (speaking in relative terms that is the scenery of farm towns can only change so much). It was fun to see my sister and she even took me out for lunch/dinner. I am not sure if it was because I was hungry or if it was actually super good but I had a fresh fish sandwich which was super good. In a way I really don't mind the 8 hour drive that much it is nice to have some time to your self to just think and channel surf the radio and find interesting things like the reading of hog prices and some great country music stations :)


Anyway this is at least an update of the first part. A lot has happened since I shall write another entry tomorrow.  

Here is a cool pic/quote I found:

Final week of classes and SNOW

Hi All,

It is may 3rd and we have snow on the ground what is wrong with this picture. The Royals had their game canceled due to snow yesterday. I have to admit I am from Chicago so I thought nothing can beat the crazy weather that Chicago gets but I have to hand it to you Kansas City 80 degree days in January and snow on May 3rd this is pretty crazy. On Monday it was 86 out and I commented to a friend after I got back from a run that it was almost too hot out and now today the high is only like 40. People walking back from classes in flip flops and when it is snowing out was a funny scene I have to admit.

Anyway enough about the weather, I am officially done with classes for the semester time to celebrate right? .......oh wait there are those things called finals coming up next week, kind of important. I am very fortunate to only have two in class finals next week. My two in class finals are for Accounting Information Systems and Philosophy 1000, Reality and Human Existence Which I have to admit has been my hardest class at Rockhurst so far) so that is how I will be spending my weekend. I have one take home final due next week as well then freedom for the summer right?? Oh wait I work for Residence Life as a Desk Manager and as part of our contract we have to stay though the Sunday after graduation to help check out all the seniors. All the moms get to help their recent college grads move out on Mothers Day, what a great way to say "I love you Mom" now come help me move back home" in some cases. It is crazy to see how quiet campus gets so quickly. I have to admit I am kind of sad my time as a Residence Life staff member is coming to an end but how does the saying go "Everything happens for a Reason" or "When one door closes another opens" Once everyone leaves and it is just the Residence Life staff on campus you almost feel like you have the whole campus to your self. Then a week from Monday I am going to make the 8 hour drive back home.

Well that is it for now. I am off to go study with a few others for Philosophy. Hope everyone enjoys their weekend!!!

I saw this just a friendly inspirational reminder:

Time with my sister!

Hi All,

I am so sorry I got so busy last week that I did not get a chance to blog. This has been a fun weekend so far and I thought I would take some time to blog before I get to my homework (aka I am procrastinating a little bit longer). I was so lucky my sister Hannah decided to come and visit me this weekend (she is a senior in high school and deciding on here where should go to college). It was really some great bonding time for us that she decided to come and visit me for the weekend. Last night was SAB’s annual spring concert last night. Jared Nemon and Love & Theft came to play, two country artists for those of you who are not educated on country music. Rockhurst concerts are a lot of fun, normally spring concerts vary on the genre of music that they have for them. The fall concerts are normally the country ones. This year it was reversed. It is a fun way to start and end every school year with a concert! The concert was a little cold with the rain (I am not quite sure why they did not have it inside to be honest but oh well…) So that is the main reason (besides seeing her brother of course that my sister came in).

Then today we went to go volunteer at the Warrior Dash along with others from the honors program. If anyone has not heard of the Warrior Dash you should check it out. It is crazy, not necessarily for everyone but it was fun. Groups can volunteer at the Warrior Dash and they Warrior Dash makes a donation to the organization they are with. It is a certainly a unique volunteer experience.

Yesterday I went to my internship in the morning at Nonprofit Leadership Alliance. I have been there about a month now and I am really enjoying it! It will be nice to still be able to be home this summer while having an awesome internship. I am planning a conference in Chicago that will take place in January of 2014.

 

Well that is the update for now. One more week of classes then finals! Finals week should not be too bad so that is good. I just want it to feel like spring/summer we are so overdue it gets warm then it gets cold again and then warm. Spring temps us so often but has not been here to stay yet. We have also gotten a ton of rain lately.

Oh when I get more time this weekend or sometime this week I will blog about the two honor society inductions I have had this past week and the Nonprofit Senior Lunch I went to on Thursday.

Here is a really good prayer I found:

Lord Give Me Your Strength

Give us your strength, Lord. Because sometimes things get tough, and we are ready to quit.

Give us your love, Lord. Because sometimes people reject us, and we are tempted to hate.

Give us your eyes, Lord. Because sometimes life gets dark, and we lose our way.

Give us your courage, Lord. Because often we are put under pressure, and it’s hard to do what is right.

Give us yourself, Lord. Because our hearts are made for you, and we will not rest until we rest in you.

By Fr. Mark Link, S.J.