Frederick County Three Times in a Week

The title says it all.

After going home for church on Pentecost and my pastor's last service, I found out that I will be going back on Wednesday for the council meeting in addition to going back Saturday to celebrate my birthday with my family.

Wednesday night, the church council is meeting with the conference minister who will be helping the church find a new pastor.  Yesterday, the council president asked me to attend this meeting.  I also found out that as of now, the council has not lined up anyone to preach this summer.  I'm thinking Wednesday's meeting is to get approval to let me preach at least once this summer.  In fact, I have all but been asked to do so.  I believe the final answer comes Wednesday night.  Stay tuned, as I may be asking people if they want to attend if I preach again.

Here's to hoping the church's search for a new minister goes well and quickly.

Free Time? Who Needs It?

I just made my summer more interesting.

Not only do I have that research thing to do to prepare for my preliminary exam in the fall, a trip to St. Mary's in June, a wedding to attend in July, a Hersheypark trip probably in August, and the potential for serving as a preacher for the better part of the summer (the church council still has to get back to me on what they need me to do), but today I added helping with the new student orientation for the incoming first-years to the list of things to do.  Oh, and I decided to join a Bible study group with a few other math people from UMD.

I could have said, "I passed my qualifying exams last summer, so I can take it easier this summer," but instead, I decided to give myself more work to do.  It'll be good for the CV, at least.  I hope.

Again, I have no idea why I volunteered for this.  Maybe I'm subconciously trying to put off something else.

Really, NASA? Really?

Surprise, surprise, the shuttle program will go on past September.  Scientists have decided to change some magnets in an experiment on the space station to longer-lasting ones.  Thus, Endeavour's launch (STS-134), originally scheduled for July, has been pushed back to November to accommodate the changes.  This does three things.  One, it pushes the shuttle program past its scheduled end in September.  Two, it robs Discovery on STS-133 (yes, the numbers are out of order) of the honor of flying the last shuttle mission (unless something goes wrong with the Endeavour mission and Discovery has to fly a rescue mission).  Three, because Discovery will have to be on stand-by for a rescue mission, its delivery to the Smithsonian probably will be delayed.  The second point is especially bad since the crew for Discovery's last mission is supposed to consist of the more senior astronauts at NASA, giving them the honor of flying the last mission.  (In fact, the commander for STS-133 is the senior-most American astronaut.)

In more positive news, the semester is almost over.  I am actually finished with all my assignments for the semester, so I just have a couple of meetings and six more classes. And, I get to go to a wedding in July.

Oh, and no word from the church yet.  I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

In Fear of the AOL Account

No, this isn't a diatribe against AOL.  But over the next few days, I could be getting some emails to my AOL account (since my church's members don't know about the Gmail account yet) that will impact my summer plans.

Today at church, the preacher announced she is resigning at the end of May to take a full-time job as chaplain of a local nursing home.  Thus, my church is in the market for a new pastor.  This means a search committee has to be formed and preachers chosen to fill the gap of time between June and whenever a new or interim pastor has been chosen.  I see a couple potential tasks for me:

1. As arguably the most active younger member of the church, I am not ruling out the possibility that I may be asked to serve on the search committee.  I don't think distance will get me out of it; after all, I did serve six months as council president while residing in College Park.
2. The church will need someone(s) to fill the gap as preacher.  As a member who actually preached a couple of times, well, you see where this is going.  Fortunately, the Sunday during Reunion Weekend as well as the Sunday after a certain event in July are "off" Sundays for my congregation, i.e., I know I won't have to preach those days.

This worrying may be for nothing, though.  I'll have to see.  And if I have to preach at all, I'll let those of you who want to attend know the dates.

April = Bad

If any month should be stricken from the calendar, I think April is it.  Yesterday, a plane carrying many high-ranking Polish government officials crashed in Russia.  Add that to the mining tragedy in West Virginia last week, and it appears that April 2010 is aiming to live up to the reputation of its predecessors.  Granted, it has a lot to live up to.

• First death of a sitting United States President (1841)--although this was mainly because of Harrison's stupidity
• Lincoln's assassination (1865)
• Birth of Adolf Hitler (1889)
• Sinking of the Titanic (1912)
• Death of FDR (1945)
• King's assassination (1968)
• Apollo 13 mission (1970)--okay, this one wasn't that bad
• Oklahoma City bombing (1995)
• Columbine shooting (1999)
• Death of John Paul II (2005)
• Virginia Tech shooting (2007)

But a third of the way in, April 2010 has not screwed me (well, except for the 90-degree days last week).  Hopefully, it will stay that way.

In fact, I had an enjoyable evening last night in DC.  Next time, we should try for something during the day, since the weather is getting nicer.

Post 100 Already?

I was kind of hoping my hundreth post would be a little more substantial, but that hope, much like some of my hopes for spring break, has been dashed.

First, the good that came out of break:

• Both midterm exams are now finished.  I felt really stupid when I figured out the last problem I was working on.  The solution to the problem I've been working on all week: three lines.
• The weather.  Nothing else to be said.
• The Terps actually won last night and didn't pull a Georgetown, so they face Michigan State on Sunday night.

Now, the not so good:

• Plans to get people together this week--aborted.  Granted, I did wait too late to try to put something together.  But I was hoping something would have come out of it.
• Reports from back home are not so good.  Based on what my mom told me last night, the inevitable phone call is going to be in a week, maybe two; not much more.  On that note, my mom and aunt made most of the funeral plans this week.

Yeah, I almost hate to say it, but except for getting the midterms finished, this year's break was almost a waste.  Well, at least I don't have to spend the summer studying for qualifying exams this year.

Could Have Done Without That Call

Today's update: my grandmother is on morphine (a dose every two hours) to try to alleviate the pain so that she can eat.  Apparently, her appetite had not gotten any better since I saw her on Friday.  Also, her mental capacity has taken a bit of a nosedive, as she hasn't been able to remember things my aunt and mom have told her.
So with my aunt in town this week, she and my mom made preliminary arrangements with the funeral home (picking the casket, naming pallbearers, etc.).

Yeah, today's update from home was bad and a clear juxtaposition with the weather around here lately.