Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Pictures for nostalgia´s sake

This is the day before graduation I think. from left to right- Evan Fast, Greg Shelley, Aaron Voth, Kyle Unruh, Jordan Penner, and Jenny Regier. These are all people I lived with this last year (except Jenny). We missed the presence of other modmates Jordan Bartel and Isaac Olsen (aka number 2). This post is kind of the result of some recent nostalgia for Bethel College. Sorry to the old 6C that a picture of you guys is not on here, at the moment it is not on here. I miss how easy it was to be with lots of friends, all the time. I miss eating three meals a day with a different selection of friends every meal, late nights doing work and or avoiding it, convocations to round out the week and all kinds of other stuff revolving around having a great community of good people handed to you on a silver platter. I could go on, but I am focing myself to stop.SPRING BREAK- well this was my last spring break group anyways. Cari Holliday (who once studied here in guatemala) Peter Miller (fellow History major) Kim Schmidt (who also studied in Guatemala) and Miriam Friesen (who also was a fellow History major). I showed this picture to my family and my host mom said that I looked much thinner in it. uh oh.
And finally here is a good picture of my family in Cambodia with new inductee Sina Yang. In front of a temple in Anchor Wat. I think I like long hair better...

Monday, September 8, 2008

Antigua and Pacaya

note-I am multitasking as I write this, so sorry in advance for all the errors.

a note from my good friends, Cari Holliday, Kim Schmidt, and Tim Parker in my personalized edition of ¨the Lonely plantet¨quotes Henry Dyck as saying ¨I poop on Antigua¨... and I definately understand and agree with the sentiment. But it´s still fun. On our epic 36 drive hour drive home from Kansas to California ((we went the long way) which if you know me I often mention for many different reasons) Joseph and I both named Henry as one of our favorite people at school. I think we both mentioned that we felt Henry liked us because we laughed at his jokes. Anyways enough about Henry Dyck.

Antigua is pretty touristy, but it was a fun, quick trip out of the city. It was also us three SALTers first trip away without anybody else to help us out... which felt good. We hiked the volcano Pacaya which also attracts a lot of tourists, but with good reason. WE got to see real lava... I mean come on!

It was wet and windy (despite teh fact that we left at six in the morning) and I bought a big piece of plastic to protect myself... works pretty well actually. Not a terrible hard hike but still fun. It´s interesting how it is so ugly and beutiful at the same time. I was very much reminded of mount Doom.¨NO Sam. I cannot remember the taste of strawberr pie (or something like that) or the sound of water fally on a summers morning.... I am lying naked in the dark with nothing.... I can see him now with my waking eyes¨that´s no where near correct, but that´s the jist of it. Nate Boldt and I had some fun with that one. Yes I know I am a nerd.


Anyways I returned home saturday evening and enjoyed some time with my host family.

On Sunday I went to church with my family and got in on an engagement celebration. David and I (and many others) ended up getting dressed up in rediculous apparel of the opposite sex. thenwe got to dress up teh bride and groom in newspaper. Afterwards I played soccer (well) for a while and now have pain in my lower back. oh well. Everybody else seemed to have brought soccer clothers to play in after church, but I didn´t, so I had to sweat through my nice shirt and pants. oh well, I still scored a bunch of goals (someting I never really got much of a chance to do at Bethel...). Though I hear that right now would be my time to shine and the good old Thresher squad.

After soccer, the engagment party just so happend to continue at my house and yada yada yada I´m really tired today.

Who would have th0ught it´s raining in Guate right now. Should I stay or go...

I think I´ll go, why are we so scared of water falling from the sky anyway. We bathe in it, we drink it, we do recreational activities in it, but when it´s falling from the sky we´re scared of it. Ok enough of the Seinfeld imitation.

I hope all of you are doing well and thanks to all of those who are supporting me and all those who have written me or left messges. Kim I will get to your questions, I´ve forgotten what they were for the moment.

Jordan

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

A short update

Today was my third day of language study and it has been going pretty well. It's four hours, but with a thirty minute break which can turn into a 40 minute break. My maestra is fun and a lot of times we just talk about a variety of things- immigration, Obama vs Mccain, spanish literature, racism in Guatemala and the United States, school systems... many times the time se fue volando (went by really fast). Today we listened to music. It was a fun exercise. Sometimes I talk pretty well, other times not.

The other with my host family night we watched the new version of poseidon on television. Kind of fun.

I am now starting to read the book El Senior Presidente which won a nobel prize and is by Asturias, a Guatemalan auther. So for it is pretty difficult though.

Today was also my first day in which I went to school on my own. Yesterday my host brother showed me the way. I decided to be safe and walk today, although it took a long time and isn't too fun with the traffic and pollution.

Jordan