Bittersweet Goodbye

Isn't it strange how in the midst of something as bitter as a goodbye, there can be sweetness? Leaving SIAS was hard, wondering if I would ever again see some of my friends. Yet even in that sorrow, I felt such love from them as we hugged goodbye. I pray that they who I left behind and miss will come to know the great love of God so that even if I for some reason am not able to see them again on this earth, that we will forever be together worshiping our Savior!

Micah's Wedding

I arrived back in America late Thursday night...just in time to get up Friday morning and drive down to Americus to meet my old roommate and friend Micah, who was getting married the following day. We then had to drive to Albany to pick up my tux, which was good because it gave us time to talk by ourselves. We had the rehearsal that evening and then Micah, two of the other groomsmen and I played frisbee golf around the GSW campus with our new neato frisbees with lights in the middle. The next day was the wedding of course, which was beautiful. Micah has always been a good friend to me. I began school when he was a senior Accounting major and he made it a point to befriend me and some of my other freshman friends. Several years later, after he had graduated and then started working on his second degree, we became roommates. That first year we lived together was when he and Heather began dating, so I was often a third wheel in those first years of them dating, though they never made me feel like that...on the contrary, they always made me feel like they were glad I was hanging out with them. I love them both a lot and am glad that they gave me the opportunity to be in their wedding.

The bride and groom (on the right) with Heather's childhood friend and boyfriend, at the rehearsal: The 4 groomsmen:

Joseph and Ruth in Class 2

Several weeks ago I wrote about Joseph and Ruth coming to my class, but I didn't have the pictures to show you. So here they are now. I divided the class into two teams to play Charades, so this is them with their respective teams:After playing Charades, they wrote short stories:

Shanghai

After spending a day in Hangzhou we caught a night train to Shanghai arriving around 10pm. We went to our hostel caught a few z's and then got up early the next morning to see what we could of a huge city in one day. There are a lot of cool looking buildings in Shanghai, but overall, it just seemed like a normal big city. Personally I enjoy cities where I can see a lot of natural beauty more so than cities like Shanghai or New York. But it was still cool to go up to the 88th floor of the Jin Mao Tower, which is the 4th tallest building in the world. Other than that we just walked down a famous shopping street and around other parts of the city. And we did find a small park with some flowers as you can see below:Joseph in front of the Jin Mao tower:A view of the inside of the Jin Mao tower from the 88th floor: