Matt And Katie Can't Shop In Wal Mart Only

Since our last post on the rapidly declining local temperature we have actually seen snow. I have heard from people in other states that some have seen “flurries” but we actually had snow. On Monday morning we awoke to a light dusting on the grass and about 1/4 inch on the cars. It was very pleasant until I realized it was still October which seems to mean we are going to be in for a long winter.

These past few days have been excessively busy. At the beginning of this week I had four projects due which required much of my time over the weekend to be completed. Today I have finally taken a breath and can actually see some light at the end of the tunnel. It’s hard to believe that this semester is almost 3/4 over and we have been writing on this blog for over two months.

In this last week Katie and I have settled on plans to travel in December. We will be visiting the Baltimore and Harrisonburg areas and we eagerly await seeing everyone. We have been thinking of some important things to do while we are in Baltimore. Here is a sampling of our list, in no apparent order:
1. Shop at Target...a lot.
2. Eat at P.F. Changs (a restaurant that opened just before we left Baltimore but didn’t have a chance to eat at).
3. Eat at Little China (Beckley is sorely lacking in Chinese cuisine).
4. Buy some cheap clothes at Ross (a great clothing store with awesome prices).
5. See everyone at our old church on Sunday morning.
6. Visit our Chick-Fil-A and see our friends.
7. Go to White Marsh Mall (if malls were dogs then Crossroads Mall in Beckley would be a Chihuahua, White Marsh Mall would be a Tyrannosaurus Rex).

As you may have noticed we have been spoiled by the amenities of a big city. We enjoy the atmosphere and the charm of small town life but just as man cannot live on bread alone Matt and Katie can't shop in Wal Mart only. Also, it would be nice to drive on a road that goes faster than 35 miles per hour and doesn’t have a red light every mile. We are excited to see all our friends and family and take a vacation. But, for now we are staying focused and cracking down on the learning.

Sorry for leaving you without the juicy details of our lives for so long. We anticipate posting again on Friday with the details of our school coffeehouse on Thursday. Stay classy everyone, you’re in our hearts.

Scarfs And Earmuffs

Fall is upon us and cold is setting in. Mornings are best described with the word frost and evenings are characterized by a bright sun and chilly winds. Each week it seems that Katie and I add another layer of clothing to our outfit. It started as just a long sleeve shirt for me, then it became a long sleeve on top of an undershirt. The sweater was added on top of those two and now a jacket is added on top of that. Scarf and earmuff days are rapidly approaching as the “s” word (snow of course) is rumored around campus. I know it’s cold and the winter breeze demolishes my faces on the way to class every day but I can’t wait for snow. Judging by our visit to the campus last February and the testimony of seasoned residents we gather that the snowfalls here are usually beautiful. We don’t seem to get much of the wet slushy snow that collects dirt and lays on the side of the road for days. No no, here in Beckley the snow will either lay in increments large enough to go sledding on or it just blows away for future use. I realize this sounds very imaginative and that there will be many days that I dread trudging through the smushy white precipitation, but oh well, it never hurts to dream.

We received good news in my midterm grade report Thursday, I have a 4.0 GPA so far this semester. I say this not to brag because this is not typical for me by any means. This is the first time I’ve ever gotten straight A’s and I’m thankful God has provided all the means for that to be attained. Katie is rejoicing with me because she plays a large part in my schoolwork, encouraging me and sacrificing “us time” so that I can advance in my learning.

Don’t forget that Katie has a small handmade quilt listed on eBay. Go check it out soon, bidding ends on Sunday afternoon. Katie's quilt square.

De-Skunking

Recently there has been multiple sightings of the skunk who terrorized our nostrils back in back in August (A Fairy Tale Beginning And A Happily Ever After). He hasn’t sprayed for over a month so I guess that means we are friends now. Katie and her friend Jennifer are talking about “de-skunking” it and making it a pet. They think it’s cute to have a skunk living right by our house. I don’t mind having it around as long as it doesn’t spray during dinner.

Monday we were very surprised to receive a package from our Chick-Fil-A back in Baltimore. It was a hefty box that sounded a little squishy, it also had the word “perishable” stamped all over it. At first I thought “Oh no, they sent us some chicken.” Then I remembered that the owner, Steve, used to speak so reverently about a certain kind of pies. The box seemed pie-sized and weighed appropriately. But, when we tore it open we discovered much more than a pie--they sent us a whole box full of snacks and goodies. Now we have enough candy to last us through Christmas.

Tuesday I took my last of four midterm exams. So far I have gotten two of the grades back. The first was Bible Doctrine Overview with a 100%. The second was from hermeneutics which, if you recall, is the class that Katie and I take together, we both received 109%. I am looking forward to the return of my other two grades. We’ve spent a lot of time sweating over these exams in the last two weeks so it’s good to have them over with and to have good results.

Gangsta Matt From B-More

Thursday was represent your state day for spirit week. After thinking long and hard about what would best represent Maryland and specifically Baltimore we arranged a very “fitting” costume. This is gangster Matt from B-more, also featured below is a West Virginia native. See if you can pick out which one is which.




Friday was then twin day, a hectic midterm schedule and lack of planning erased my involvement for this day but I do have pictures of some other twins for you.


Friday night after work we went to a married student game night which turned out to be very fun. After feasting on pizza, cookies and pie we dug into some games. Katie played Settlers of Catan with about seven other people. She’d never played it before but apparently had much fun learning. I joined two friends in the gymnasium for a basketball game. We went head to head in “21” I lost miserably with only two points. By the end of the game I was begging to sit down (my lungs are very out of shape). For about five minutes after the game was over I had the feeling that I needed to vomit. The whole time that I was trying to calm my stomach I heard my parents saying “Don’t run on a full stomach.” I kept my food down and finally learned a valuable lesson.

This weekend was filled with work and study, more so than usual. I have taken three midterms so far and I have one more on Tuesday. When I get this out of the way I will be able to relax a little bit. Sunday we listed another one of Katie’s quilts on eBay. We would appreciate everyone checking it out.

Plaid Is Not A Color

Spirit week is going great. Katie and I were happy participants in Monday’s comb over/pigtail day. I gelled up my hair and slicked it all over to the side as far as I could. I’m in desperate need of a haircut so it actually turned out pretty good looking. It was almost like how my mom used to part my hair for those dorky school portraits.



Tuesday was layers day. I thought to myself on Monday night, “How fun could layers be? I don’t want to sweat during my classes with three shirts on.” Unfortunately I didn’t participate in layers day. I realized the folly of my thinking when, in my first class, I saw plenty of friends dressed in peculiar garb that weren’t sweating. Apparently layers day is synonymous with mismatch day.



Wednesday was wing color day. Each wing of the dormitories had to coordinate and pick a color that they would all dress in. Obviously I’m not in a dorm but I had thought of dressing to match the wing of one of my friends. I decided against it and thought to myself “How fun could it be to dress in the same color as a bunch of other people?” I didn’t even take my camera for this day because I thought so little of it, I was wrong again. One wing spiced of the theme of the day by choosing “chrome” as their color. As such they clothed themselves in tin foil and duct tape. O, how I yearned for a vest made of shiny aluminum foil! Another wing chose “plaid” as their color. Yes, I do realize the lack of intelligence involved in such a choice but they had fun regardless. They all looked like farmers up top but on the bottom they slid plaid shorts over top their school regulated pants.

Thursday is dress to represent your state day, I will not miss out on this one! I only need to figure out a way to accurately represent Maryland. I thought of having a blue crab shipped in but thought it might be a little dangerous to carry to class. In due time I will tell you what happened on Thursday.

Pipe-Snaking School

All around us the leaves are changing to their red and yellow colors, falling to the ground. The bursts of color make the season of fall a reality. It’s hard to believe how much of this year has passed and how much we have done already. Among many other things, Katie and I were blessed to celebrate out first anniversary back in April, we enjoyed many exciting vacations over the summer and more recently our lives were dramatically changed when we moved to West Virginia for college. We are now almost half way through the first semester at ABC. Last October I couldn’t have seen to this point in the future. We knew God wanted us to go to Bible college but didn’t know where. We didn’t even find out about ABC until January of this year. But what I haven’t been able to predict God has known since the beginning of the world. I’m very amazed by that fact and I find great confidence in it for the future.

There were no classes on Friday because of homecoming but there were seminars for us to attend. The word “seminar” may convey a lot of different ideas but basically we had a few visiting speakers teaching on subjects of their choice. We could choose two out of the four subjects to listen to. Katie and I picked “Reaching out to the homeless and addicted” and “Creative ways of effecting your community.” Both were interesting but the latter was especially interesting. A pastor from Abingdon, Virginia shared some ways that his church has used the resources God has given them (their building, property, etc.) to be a witness to the community in Abingdon. He left the impression on us that if God has given us possessions and talents we should use them in every way possible for his glory.
After the seminars we went to work and had no reason to suspect anything out of the ordinary until…we walked in the back of the store and were greeted by a hair-raising stench. The drain under the main sink had become clogged and was barely letting any water down. Our handy-dandy operator brought in his shop-vac and “plunged” the drain of all it’s rotten contents. He removed buckets of a substance that should be sealed and thrown away in a radioactive landfill. Excited by his accomplishment and glad he had become immune to the stench, our operator proudly told one of his employees to let water out of the sink and test the revitalized drain. The clog had become worse and wouldn’t let any water down. At this point John, the operator, made the wise choice not to fool with it anymore but to call a professional plumber. Two guys barely older than me showed up to put their craft into practice. Even though it looked like they had just graduated from “pipe-snaking” school last week they did the job successfully and we all rejoiced together.

On Saturday evening after work we went to Wal Mart for some overdue grocery shopping. Now the void in my refrigerator’s life is filled with milk, eggs and lunch meat. Saturday night we went with our neighbors, Dan and Jennifer to check out Young Chow’s a Chinese restaurant on the other side of town. Afterwards we enjoyed frozen custard at a local stand and hung out together until midnight.

Sunday we took a relaxing walk around campus and snapped a bunch of pictures to show everyone what we have been surrounded by lately.

We are excited that it is now spirit week on campus, the schedule is as follows:
Monday we will have a Combover/Pigtail Day
Tuesday will be Layers Day. It is still class dress, but wear as many layers of clothing as you can.
Wednesday will be Wing Color Day. As a wing you need to choose a color and have everyone on your wing wear that same color.
Thursday will be Represent Your State/Country Day. Wear something that represents your State or Country. The idea is more the entire state than merely a particular sports team in the state, though that is allowed for the unimaginative. Class dress is still expected with the addition of these elements.
Friday will be Twin Day. Plan to dress the same way as someone else.
Saturday we will have a Warrior Day so wear your Warrior T-Shirts.

We will have pictures for you throughout the week.

He Had Been Around Heavy Machinery Too Much

Tuesday became an interesting day very early on. I only had one class and it passed quickly, after dismissal I made my way to the college post office to check for any graded class work. In my mailbox I found an assignment from hermeneutics, one that I was eagerly awaiting to be returned. My eagerness was met with disappointment when I looked at the paper and thought it said 7/10. I was almost devastated. I realize how pithy it may sound to be upset over a 70% but I work very hard on all my assignments. On this particular paper I spent at least an hour on and to be honest I enjoyed the study and felt I had a great grasp of the concepts. That Tuesday morning was very dreary for me and the walk home was more of a hopeless trudge. By the time I had reached my house I had already planned how I was going to contest the grade to my teacher the next time I saw him. I unlocked the door, stumbled in and plopped down on the couch. I was supposed to spend the next few hours studying for my Bible Doctrine Overview exam on Wednesday but the first hour was consumed by distraction and discouragement. As time went on I pushed the paper to the back of my mind and asked God to help me focus on studying. He indeed helped and I got some quality learning time in before I had to drop Katie‘s car off to be looked at by a mechanic at 1:00. I’ll tell you more about this paper in a moment but I want to tell this chronologically and it’s my story so that’s what I’ll do.

I left the car at the mechanic shop, gave the gentleman my keys and filled out the necessary paperwork. A friend had to drive me back home because Katie was at work. Back up one sentence and notice the phrase “gave the gentleman my keys.” Yeah, I gave him my keys, all of them. How bout that? I didn’t even realize what I’d done until I got home and began rummaging my pockets for the house key. This could have turned out much worse because I only had twenty minutes to get changed and get to my physical education class and I had no way of getting to Katie in time to borrow her keys. Luckily, the family who oversees the married community here lives only one house away and they had a master key to let me in. After a hearty thanks to my neighbor I closed the door from the inside and dashed upstairs to get changed. I grabbed my spare set of keys and headed off for physical education.

After P.E. I came home to focus on some more studying. I was only home a few moments before my phone rang. It was Jim, the mechanic who apparently has been around heavy machinery much too long, telling me the verdict on my car. After a few short attempts at basic communication I realized that I needed to speak significantly louder if Jim was going to hear me. I did and we conversed successfully. The problem with our car is that the ABS and traction light’s are staying on. I don’t consider it a big deal, the car drives great, but the state of West Virginia won’t let it pass inspection with these lights on. We paid Jim to tell us how to fix these lights and the associated problems. He informed me in a solemn tone that to even begin properly diagnosing our car they would have to replace the computer module (which would cost about $1000 between parts and labor). Jim then said that after that the repairs could bring us to a total of $2500. Just so you know Katie only paid $2375 for the car two years ago. The situation was really a no-brainer: there’s no means or reason for us to spend this much money on Katie’s car, it will be sold. I thanked Jimbo and told him I would be by to pick it up later.

By this time I figured it had been a pretty interesting day and I was looking forward to telling Katie about it. I hopped off the couch to pull out my horrible hermeneutics homework so that I could have a visual aid when I told her later. As I pulled it back out I realized there was a zero after the seven on my grade. Naturally, I deduced there is no way to have a 70/10 so what I thought was a 7 was actually a 1 with a slight hook because the teachers pen had run out of ink. Waves of relief rushed over me and for a few moments I was able to laugh at myself just as I’m sure you are laughing at me now.

The day turned out not to be so bad. What I had thought was a 70% was actually a 100%. I could have avoided much heartache if I wouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. I got locked out of my house but I live right next to the landlord so that wasn’t bad at all. I even got some shocking news about one of our cars but that isn’t really bad. Katie and I have been talking about selling one of the cars but weren’t sure which. We like her car but it takes premium gas and is high on insurance because of the supercharged engine. All the problems were solved for us. We know which one needs to go and it didn’t require any hard thought. If the repairs had only been $300 we might have spent the money and still not have fixed the problem. But with repairs totaling up to $2500 there’s no question that we are getting rid of her car. This will save on insurance, gas and we shouldn’t have any trouble getting around this small town with just one car.

That was our Tuesday, I would love to tell you more but you know I resist abnormally long posts. If a post is long enough for the sun to set before you finish reading it then it’s too long and that’s why I’m cutting this one off right here by saying “goodbye everyone.”

Hot Hot Hot

Saturday evening was spent at the Beckley Chili festival which turned out to be a neat event. To start I must say I didn’t know that many people LIVED in Beckley.

The festival was held downtown where about 2 streets were sectioned off for the festivities. We paid $5 for 5 tickets and a voting token. Each ticket was worth a 5 ounce sample of chili and the token was to give to the stand which had your favorite. Right near the entrance the culinary arts institute was dishing out their samples. The table was very crowded, obviously no one is going to underestimate the culinary arts institute’s ability to make good chili. We spent over an hour navigating the tremendously crowded streets looking for the best chili. I’ll let the pictures speak for the rest of this event.

Katie digs into the first bite
The happy couple
Timmy gets a spider painted on his face. Good thing we got a picture right away because he wiped it off two minutes later.
No activity in West Virginia is complete without square dancing. Katie wanted to jump in until she remembered neither of us knows to square dance.
The fire department was serving "super hot chili" I'll say no more.

What an exciting week ahead: I have two exams on Wednesday that I’m psyched about, homecoming is Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and I have a few short school days this week because some teachers are away and others are involved in a masters module that is very time consuming. I’m using all the spare time to hulk up with exam knowledge.

Oh Look Smarties!

Another week has come and gone well. In my previous post I was cautious of a load of homework creeping up on me. My caution was justified on Wednesday when several of my teachers piled it on. Wednesday is my worst day of the week for homework because I have school, work and church and only 1 hour in between each. Fortunately I’ve kept up on everything and Katie and I are looking forward to seeing some more family this weekend. My mom and step-dad are traveling to North Carolina for a family reunion on Saturday and are using the opportunity to swing by here on the way back. We’re looking forward to seeing them and the kids.

Katie’s parents brought us some cool movies to watch in our spare time, ha ha. I tore through my homework on Thursday and set aside two hours that night to watch a movie with Katie. I have little interest in giving you a cinema review but I would like to share a pre-viewing dialogue Katie and I had. The movie was set and ready to go but we were missing snacks so we paused our feature presentation and got up to go scavenge the kitchen. Here is what was said while Katie was looking in our pantry. Notice Katie’s very spacey attention span, she gets distracted by anything with a shiny wrapper.

Katie: Do you think you can make s’mores out of chocolate brownies?
Matt: Noooo
Katie: Do you like vanilla pudding? Oh never mind this looks congealed. Wait we only got this for my birthday it doesn’t expire until January 2009 (Katie’s birthday was back in February)
Matt: I guess it’s ok then
Katie: Oooh look Smarties!
Matt: I have no idea where they came from.

We have been blessed this week to be able to hear two messages from the dean of student services, Dave Childs. Mr. Childs is an exceptional preacher that I really enjoy listening to and learning from. We heard from him at Maxwell Hill Baptist Church on Sunday because Pastor Ken was away on vacation. He spoke a riveting message on the nature of God’s grace and how it ought to stir us up. He also spoke at our chapel service on Wednesday about idolatry. The first few minutes of this sermon were very entertaining and the rest convicting. If you have a minute or two and a decent internet connection I encourage to listen to some of his message from chapel. Within the first minute and a half you will have a good laugh, if you listen to the whole thing you will have a good blessing. Dave Childs 10-1-08

My first exam is coming up next Wednesday. It is in my Bible Doctrine Overview class and covers all the material we have learned so far as well as about twelve Bible verses we have had to memorize. Pray for me as I study like crazy because I want a 100%. I’ll let you know the results as soon as I get them.