The start of my junior semester

First, I want to begin with an apology. This is one of the longer spans that I haven’t blogged, and a lot has gone on so I’ll have to skim some information that I would normally go in depth about.

Second, I would like to point out the title of this post. It’s “The start of my junior semester” because next semester I will have enough credits to be a senior. This is possible because I’ve taken 18 units each semester and 12 outside of the normal semester. In fact, I’ll have 90 units where I only need 88 to be a senior. After this semester I will be half way done with my undergraduate degrees at Biola, as I need 184 or so units to graduate.

Anyways, that’s where I am academically, but now let’s talk about SOS week, Disneyland, and Nation Ball.

SOS Week

This year I was a Crew leader and had transfer students. I could never tell you all about training and SOS week, but I’ll give you a quick run down.

My parents and I drove down to Biola early to drop my sister off for grad school. I went with my parents to Disneyland while my sister started her job training. Finally I returned to my home in Emerson. It was empty because almost no one had moved in yet. Even my RA was gone for the day.

Derek on Sarah's farm

The crew leaders met up that night and had dinner while fellow shipping and talking about our summers. Some of us had seen each other at Sarah’s farm in Oregon when she performed a wedding. That’s another story, and this picture is few stories in itself.

Anyways, we had pick up sticks with the 7 crew leaders (Lexi, Ann, Hill, Greg, Ryan, Mat, and me), the directors (Derek and Sarah) and the Director of Student Transitions Claudia and her husband Matt. Let me just say, these two are such a blessing to SOS and Biola. They both have poured into our lives and work endless hours each year to make SOS the program it is, and Matt isn’t even officially on staff! He’s working on his masters in teaching and taught 7th grade at the same time. Not only do they serve us by pouring time into us, but also by their godly example of a couple. Their love for each other is evident and genuine. I say all this because I think they are two of the unsung heroes of Biola. Only SOS leaders really get to see them, and even then you can miss them because they don’t like to take the limelight. So if you ever have a chance to get to know this couple, do it.

Anyways, the next day we did some more prep work and the next day the staff came. We had a celebration night and enjoyed each other’s company and being back together. If you are considering applying for SOS or are reading this sometime down the road, know this: Fall Training and Spring Training are totally different. You may not know everyone during the spring, but when fall comes around you’ll become good friends with them. I was close to about half the staff in the spring, and then I grew close to the other half in the fall. This time contributes to the family feel of SOS.

The next afternoon we headed out to our secret retreat location, location H. That’s where we went over our logistics and started coming up with skit ideas. We had a lot of fun there too, don’t get me wrong, but  there was a lot of material that we had to get through. Once we got back we focused on getting our tasks done and practicing the skit. Oh the skit. I loved my group and we had a dang good scene. We practice for hours each night and made up that skit in only a few days, but we wouldn’t preform it till Saturday morning.

Friday was Move-In Day, University Welcome, and University Dinner. I worked in Hope and had a few misadventures in putting together beds. I don’t want to say a bed fell on my co worker, so I won’t. The University Welcome was great, and I got to stand right next to the stage so everyone could see me. Cool. the dinner was also good.

Opening Day. That’s really all I need to say. Those two words are the summation of months of training, emailing, praying, and preparing. We open up with the skit which was bomb. The night before we got to see the ending video for the skit and the numbers video, both of which play at the Kick-off in the Gym. Those two clips were two of the tree times I may have teared up during SOS week. I guess the music got to me.

My scene is hang out day, the first scene. Some of the other scenes got cut a little, sadly, BUT this is the first year where the skit was actually filmed.

Take note, at the very end of the skit, after the big choreographed number, the audience cheers really loud. That is probably one of the most epic moments of an SOS leader’s experience. It’s the first real response we get from these new students, and it’s a response of excitement. It shows that you have started off well, and that in only a few minutes you have to change and meet them in person for the first time. Leaders are frantically changing out of costumes and finding their stuff as the number video plays, then running to their spots to meet their students. That sound of that crowd brings all of that, including all the training and preparation, into one solid sound.

And here’s the numbers video. I still get chills at the end.

After that I met my students. There were a good number of them that showed up, 17 out of 25. We ran through opening day stuff and then went on to circuit of lunch, cohort, and tour. We all ate together, which is a big task considering the business of the caf and the size of my group. All the transfer groups met together in our cohort and we played Huggy-Bear with about 300 people. It was a little crazy. After that we went on the tour where I gave my custom tour of campus, which gets revamped every year because things change (like the computer lab no longer being in Metzger) and I learn new things (like the number of bells from the original campus). Later that night we had the parents forum, the BBQ, and the Communion Service (which is always special, and DBC changed his speach this year because Anders, his son, is here at Biola as a student now).

The rest of SOS week went by like a blur. Hang out day at Neff Park, Campus Worship, Community Commissioning, Pack out devotionals (this year I had 7-10 people show up instead of 2), Academic Orientation, Beach Day (that I went early to in order to reserve the fire pits. I got really red), ACD (Academic Commencement Dinner, which was a lot of fun. Sarah and Derek rocked their speeches), Splash (which is basically SOS bonding time), and Serve Day (which I organized. It went pretty well. Shout out to La Mirada Christian Church for hosting a 300 person BBQ! They’re great. Check them out some time. They have a free cafe that’s open week nights for people to go get off campus and study). That’s most of SOS week in a super fast run down.  I would write more, but I simply don’t have the time or energy. If you want to experience SOS for yourself, apply!

Disneyland

I got to go to Disneyland twice last weekend, once on Friday and again on Sunday (the second trip was with my sister, cousin, and my friend Leah, along with my cousin’s friends). I’m just going to show some pictures form those days.

Julie's sister miscounted how many people were in our group so when we went on the ride there wasn't a seat for me. I tried to get the operator's attention, but then the doors on one side closed so I ran out of the ride. The cast members let me go in another station, so I didn't have to wait forever. This is me coming out of my ride.

A snap shot of us in line for the Matterhorn

No words required

Boo, I mean Megan, with Sully

Julie and Kayla

Leah, Amanda, Kelly, and I. I try to get pictures of my friends working at Disneyland whenever I can.

Last time I was in Disneyland with Ashley we got stuck on California Screamin' and Jerry saved us by getting us off the ride. We ran into him a few more times and even took a picture with him. We ran into him again and he remembered who we were once we told him the story.

Scared velociraptors on HTH

More velociraptors

Nation Ball

Nation Ball was great this year. Emerson has a new tradition where we just do ridiculous stuff when we go out. Everyone loves it and cheers for us even when we lose. There’s no upper and lower campus, it’s all united. Here’s a video Kendall made of the night. You can see what we did and see some pictures too.

Photos courtesy of Megan and Biola AS

I know this blog is a lot more pictures than words, and that it hardly covers what I’ve done, but I’m sorry. It’s hard to write about how I’ve seen Sambica people, how Torrey is different this semester (bigger group, nursing students back, and four other people that left), the SOS director application process, how much I love my floor and my RA, weight training, my business classes, what it’s like having a sibling here at Biola with me, art walks in downtown LA, and so much more. Yet in all of these events, I know that Christ is the center. As Patrick said before Nation Ball, this is really all worship to the Lord. We do not do this for Emerson, Biola, or any men, but for the Lord.