Sarah Skelton

Right now I am procrastinating….welcome to the life of a college student. I am sitting in the coffee shop goofing off when I should be packing! Well, some my say goofing off (Gary-he says I should be packing!), but I am doing very important things like talking to my mom on Facebook and buying music for the trip (so far I have bought a Watermark album). I am leaving for Connecticut in less than 10 hours….Wow we are leaving so early! I can tell that students are excited about Spring Break. The campus will be desolate next week with students not around.

In other recent news, my roommate and I have found a new apartment to live in! There are many great places in Boiling Springs to rent. We loved our apartment but we found a better deal living in the basement of a house that two professors own. Everything is furnished and there is even a fireplace! We are super excited about it! I am not looking forward to the physical moving process because in the 2 years I have been living in that apartment I have aquired a lot of junk…I will be making many trips to Goodwill in April!

Well I guess I better get packing! 4am is going to come early : )

Well, we didn’t get as much snow that was forcasted for…but it was beautiful still! It didn’t stick to the ground at all, but fell for at least a few hours. I had a test that night so I was kind of hoping they would shut down the campus, but I honestly felt relieved after I took the test. The class I had the test in is called Contemporary Religious Movements. It is turning out to be my favorite class for the semester! The teacher is what makes the class so wonderful. It is my fourth time having him as a professor and the classes get better every time.

Spring Break is a week away and I can tell that students are getting excited. I am getting excited myself. Gary and I are taking a roadtrip to his hometown in Connecticut and we are going to visit for a week. Spring Break for me this year is very different that in past years. I was in the Concert Choir here for 5 years and every Spring Break we went on tour, so I have actually never had a Spring Break to do whatever I wanted. I loved going on choir tour but it is nice doing something different for a change!

I had such a wonderful weekend! My cousin was getting married down in FL so Gary and I set out on a road trip early Friday morning to Tampa. Not only was I able to see my family but I also got to meet Gary’s gradfather who lives in FL as well! He is the first member of Gary’s family that I’ve met because the rest of his family lives in Connecticut. He took us to dinner and it was so nice to see them interact with each other. I definitely had to do alot more listening because they had alot to catch up on. His grandfather is so sweet and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting him!

My cousin’s wedding was just beautiful! We were very worried that it might rain during the ceremony because it had been that whole morning, but right before the ceremony started, the sun came out! It was held under this huge cypress tree that had tons of branches, and some that even reached to the ground. I was trying to take notes the whole time for whenever I start planning our wedding, but I was so caught up with talking with family I had not seen in years.

In other news….it’s suppossed to snow tonight/tomorrow! I’m not sure if it will actually happen, but snow always gets this FL girl excited!!!

Well this weekend has been so wonderful! I had every right to anticipate it so much! So it started off with Gary bringing me breakfst Saturday morning from out favorite local resturant, The Snack Shop. We were dressed “to the nines” as we set off for Charlotte. Gary wanted to stop and get coffee at the coffee shop where he works at before we ventured to Charlotte. Gary had a little table next to the fireplace reserved just for us, which was adorable. He went to make my drink and when he came back I noticed some writing on my cup. I pulled off the sleeve and it said, “will you marry me?” I looked over at Gary in disbelief and he was right next to me down on one knee holding the ring. Holy cow!!! So of course I said YES!!!!!! Then everyone in the coffee shop clapped. It was really special! So as of February 6, 2010 I am engaged and have a beautiful ring on my finger! You can’t tell I’m excited can you??? So that was just the start of a wonderful day. After all of the excitement we headed up to Charlotte to make it to the musical we were going to, Spring Awakening. It was great! Then we stopped by the see one of my friends (recent GWU grad) who recently moved to Charlotte for a job. Our last stop on our journey was to Carabbas for dinner, which was great. I still am in shock that Gary asked me to marry him. I am incredibly excited as well as both of our families!!!

It is a very rainy Friday so far! I think I might would prefer the snow to all this rain! Just a few more degrees colder and I think it would be snowing. Today is also the last day of University Fellows scholarship interviews. There are a lot of perspective students here today! I think this is the biggest group we’ve had so far. In other news, I finally had my first day of class! My classes for Tuesday I am going to enjoy. I am still going to enjoy my Monday classes, but probably not as much as my Tuesday ones. On Tuesday I have The Church preparing for Mission and Ministry and Contemporary Religious Movements. I am especially excited about the latter. It seems so interesting just from the first class! So it is going to be a good semester! But I am definitely looking forward to the weekend! Gary and I are going to see the musical, Spring Awakening in Charlotte. We are also going to visit my friend Sarah who just moved to Charlotte and go out to eat at Carabbas. So I am really praying that this rain will stop (I have to work tonight too!) so we won’t have any problems with the weather.

So the day I’ve been waiting for has finally arrived, the day that Divinity classes start. The only problem is that I find myself sitting in the coffee shop across from campus and looking outside at the snow and ice all over the school. No classes on the first day of class. How crazy is that? And I’m not even sure if we’re going to have class tomorrow! So I know the teachers are going to hit the books hard when we meet next week. There’s going to be no “syllabus day” or getting out early. We probably will go over the syllabus for thirty minutes and then get right on into the subject!

In other news, Boiling Springs is beautiful!!! The snow started early Friday afternoon and went on through the night. I would estimate that we got arounf 5-6 inches. The sun is out so we won’t have the snow too much longer unfortunately. But we are expecting more snow over the weekend again! I love the snow and I would love to see it pour snow, but I have tickets for the musical, Spring Awakening on Saturday so I would really love to go see that! I have been looking forward to this since before Christmas so I would be totally disappointed it I was not able to go! Only time will tell if the weather forcast is accurate. But for now I’ll just worry about whether or not we’re going to have class tomorrow!

Wow there has been so much happening in our world this past week. As if the earthquake in Haiti wasn’t enough, I read this morning that there was an aftershock that registered 6.1 in magnitude. I do not understand this devastation in any way shape or form, but I do understand that God has a plan and that He is faithful. I am very impressed with the amount of generous outpouring of help for this country. Sunday night during handbell rehearsal at church the kids came in with little jars to collect money to help Haiti. It humbled me because these 5-8 year-olds thought of this on their own. They wanted to help! I had thought about sending money to an organization but then I thought about how I needed to make sure I had enough to pay the bills this month plus gas, and oh yeah I needed enough to have a few drinks from the coffee shop and money to go out to dinner too. So needless to say I got a little wake-up call from God through those kids who probably didn’t have much, but they wanted to help out Haiti with the little bit they had. So I learned a valuable lesson that day about giving and selfishness. So this week I am trying to be selfless in order to save a little to be able to give some to Haiti.

Since I was a little girl I have had a facination with animals, cats especially. My mom is a cat lover as well so we have always had a cat in the house. Well for the past week my family’s cat, Freckles, has been sick. She had stopped eating and just didn’t seem herself. My mom took her to the vet and they said she had kidney disease and she was put to sleep yesterday. This may seem like a really depressing blog, but she was an important part of my life and it helps me feel better to talk about it. I realized last night how attatched I was to that cat! I knew that I absolutely loved her, but I didn’t realize how much I did. My family got her from the Humane Society when I was 13. She already had the name Miranda but I didn’t think she looked like a Miranda. I named her Freckles after a Beanie Baby! I was so obsessed with Beanie Babies at that time. When we brought her home she hid for a few days because she was so shy. That sure didn’t last long though! She was very unique in that she had six toes on each paw. She was only two toes short of the world record cat. Freckles was such a loving cat. My mom always talked about how she would keep her warm whenever she would take nap. One time Freckles even found a snake in our house! So I will miss her so much but I am thankful that she didn’t have to suffer long.

Well, Gardner-Webb students are starting to file back onto campus. It has been rather lonely for the past month so it is good to see familiar faces walking outside. Classes are starting back tomorrow for Undergrad students. In the Divinity school we don’t start back until February 1st! So I am still in vacation mode (and the Christmas tree still being up helps..) I have had a wonderful break though. I got to spend time with family and friends, which is always a blessing. I also have been able to work a lot more than I do during the school year so that has been another wonderful blessing. As far as relaxing goes…I have done a lot of that too! Grad students do not get to do much relaxing so I am quite thankful. I also took a quick skiing trip with my family which was a blast. I skied my first intermediate slop, and it was one of the scariest things I have ever done! Next time I’m sticking to the easy slopes! It was still a lot of fun though!

I am looking forward to seeing my friends that work in the Admissions office. It has been quite lonely here without them. So good luck to all Undergrads who start classes tomorrow!

I had such a great weekend! My weekend consisted of being snowed/iced in, church choir rehearsal and program, Christmas with my roommate, and last but not least, a 7-month anniversary date with my boyfriend Gary. I love the snow, my roommate and my boyfriend, but my favorite and most rewarding thing this weekend was my church choir’s Christmas Cantata last night. We worked very hard on the program and it was so rewarding to hear the final product. I was so proud of them! We did a cantata called, “Once Upon a Holy Night.” The songs and narrations fit beautifully  together to form a magnificent work. We had a great turn-out from the church memebers and the choir received so many compliments. At the beginning of this weekend I was quite stressed out about the program but I calmed down after our rehearsal on Saturday. After this weekend I realized how much I love working in my church and how much I love and appreciate all of the choir members.

side note (totally off topic): GWU still has snow/ice on the ground and buildings and it is soo beautiful! The campus is gorgeous already, but a blanket of white snow makes things so much prettier!