Retreat

For those of you who don't know, I was at a church retreat from last Thursday to this Sunday. That is the reason for no blogs in that time. It wasn't particularly a "restful" retreat, but I was glad I went and found it to be a worthwhile time. If people are interested in hearing more details about it, just ask me, but I'm not planning to talk in depth about the retreat here. This is more of my typical list of meaningless observations.

Surprisingly, with nearly 4 days of no internet, I didn't think a whole lot about fantasy baseball. Normally, I would be worrying about how my pitchers were doing throughout the night and dying to check some box scores. I will admit that when I got home, probably the first thing I did was turn on my computer and see how my team was doing. As for my beloved White Sox, it seems another season has gone in the crapper and I have all but stopped following the AL Central race. It's sad, but I can't let their losing ways drag me down any longer this summer. With that said, I'll still inevitably return next spring with bright starry eyes, wishing that the coming season would be the season for my team.

College and high school kids are so old, yet so young. I remember when I was that age, only a few years ago, thinking that I was on top of the world. Now, I realize that I couldn't have been more wrong. I don't know how parents put up with kids who think they know everything. As if 20 more years of life experience means nothing, that a son or daughter has the right to feel like they know more than their mother and father who brought them into this world. And yet, I always end up at the point where I feel like I know everything, before being humbled; whether I was 10, 14, or 22 years old, I was quick to look back and see how much I had matured, rather than look ahead and see how much I had left to grow.

Still, it was quite a sight to see a lot of the kids I knew since they were little squirts, now all grown up; some with girlfriends, others as small group leaders, all with deeper voices and many having grown taller than me. I imagine someday when I have kids, it will be such an exhilirating experience to watch them grow from babies to adults. It's really hard for me to understand how people wouldn't want to have kids, but I guess everyone has their own reasons for everything, and who am I to judge?

I've gotten used to not having a roommate over the past few years. I guess it's some sort of destiny, but even at this retreat, my assigned roommate never showed up. Pretty much since second semester of sophomore year at college, I haven't ever had to share a room with anybody. I had 3 roommates at school the past couple years, but that was an apartment and I had my own room there. It's kinda nice, actually, to have the privacy of your own room, but still have friends around. I consider it a nice luxury to be had... and probably the single thing I miss most about college life.

The retreat was at NIU in DeKalb, and even though the facilities and campus were nice, I don't think I would have enjoyed going to college there at all. Something about the place just doesn't feel right. After 4 years at Champaign, I can't picture college life anywhere else. And, if Champaign-Urbana seemed dead, DeKalb is a whole lot deader. I know it's summer, but I took summer class at U of I and there was still things to do, at least there were signs of visible life around. It's seriously pretty depressing.

I used my cell phone as an alarm clock for the first time, and I don't know if all cell phones are designed the same way, or only the folks at Nokia are mentally retarded. The alarm is probably the softest sounding alarm I can imagine. It gets louder the longer you let it go, but there is no way that thing could wake me up if I was heavily in Stage 4 sleep. I ended up setting it for like 5 minutes before I wanted to actually wake up, so that hopefully by that time it would be loud enough to get me going. Oh, it vibrates too, and that is somewhat puzzling to me. Do they think that people sleep with their cell phones in their pockets? Am I weird for not going to sleep clutching my precious phone tightly? Or, is it just supposed to rattle your dresser and make noise that way to wake you up? Come to think of it, the rattling noise was probably louder than the ringing itself. In that case, why didn't they just make the ringing louder to begin with? Like I said, puzzling...

I'm dead tired from lack of sleep, so I will probably be hibernating much in the next couple days. Just a forewarning to all who happen to care.