JOE

PHOTO: Week 51!

Happy Memorial Day weekend. Respect and thanks to those who have served our country — past, present, and future.

I celebrated the holiday by going to the “great” state of Arkansas. My roommate Tim and I went to visit our buddie Jesse in Conway. He currently lives in Dallas, but his family lives in Conway, AR so we decided to meet up there because it is a nice halfway point between Nash and Dallas.

If you go back a couple months on the photoblog, I wrote about Jesse leaving Nashville. Good job photoblog. Unfortunately, that post also includes my nashty no shave november facial hair. never again.

So needless to say, we were pretty stoked about the trip. I shall now recap the Arkansas adventure.

Our first impression of Arkansas was not too pleasant. We stopped at a place called Forrest City on the way to Conway for some KFC action and we left with more than the generic “ugh i just ate kfc” response. We left with “omgee i just ate kfc in forrest city and i want to shed tears” response. We were happy to leave. 

Conway was much better! The Pastors were so awesome and hospitable. I really felt at home with those guys and Ms. Cathy’s food was excellent! Our first day, we went exploring at Petit Jean State Park. We found random cave thingys and played the weirdest rock games…but whatever, it was pretty fun. After some haphazard wanderings, we got on the trail to go the the waterfall! The hike was strenuous but eventually we made it. Apparently, the waterfall was pretty weak compared to previous years, but it was still pretty awesome in my book. We managed to get behind it and chill for a bit. It was super relaxing. The trek back was all uphill which led to much hardship for the dudes, but hannah and sarah were pretty much goin parkour on those rocks. Props. It was intense.

We spent a lot of the weekend just catching up on life and fellowshipping bout our experiences in the Lord. We caught up via sushi, sonic, walking bridge, waffle house, and david’s burgers. Jesse also took us around his old stomping grounds which was neat. It was good to be with my brother in Christ.

Sunday, we went to the Church in Little Rock, and I thoroughly enjoyed that time as well. It’s still a fascinating experience for me when I do go to another city and see the Body of Christ there. There is a glorious Church on the earth today! 

There were many little details that I’ve left out, but I will stop here.

Other notable happenings:

• I watched MState dominate the SEC baseball tourney!! #hailstate
• I watched OKC lose on a big HD TV.
• I kind of made sushi!

PHOTO: Week 50!!

Wow..50 weeks is a long time. Time sure flies, but I’m glad I’m doing this photoblog thing because now I can look back and see what all has transpired in the last year. Thanks Mom for encouraging me to do this. :)

So I really didn’t know what to write about this week, so I thought it’d be appropriate to put this picture as my photo for the week. If you didn’t notice, there is a big question mark somewhere in this photo. So now I’ll just blab about the week. Sorry if there is a lack of cohesiveness :P

One exciting happening this week was my trip Kentucky! Good ole Hopkinsville, KY, home of Ebonite Int, one of the oldest and largest bowling ball manufacturing companies in the world. Although I do enjoy bowling, I did not go to Hopkinsville to acquire any bowling balls, I went to acquire pig hearts. Wednesday was slaughterhouse day. I got 18 hearts for super awesome experiments that went fairly well I guess. The awkward part is always on the drive back because I always envision being pulled over and trying to explain to the cop why I have pig heart parts in my car…thank goodness that has never happened. Anyways, that was an exciting part of the week.

Saturday, I finally went to Musician’s Corner at Centennial Park. It’s a free summer concert that happens every week from May 5th - June 30th. You can check it out here: http://musicianscornernashville.com/ if you’d like. The weather was nice, the company was grand, and music was delightful. I enjoyed it. Kabobs and smores afterwards at Katherine’s made for a great Saturday night.

Other notable happenings:

• Got to see my boy Joey graduate from high school. Enjoyed hanging out with him and his bros. 
• Threw the ole pigskin with Brett and Joey @ Artin’s
• Got super stuffy ears…lame.
• Saw a weird robot man at Centennial 
• I actually did go bowling! 

PHOTO: Week 49!

As we go on // we remember // all the times we // had together //

*sways*

Good ole Vitamin C. This week was graduation week! I saw a bunch of graduation related posts on facebook, mostly declarations of exuberant elation (i.e. we did it, we did it, we did it! yay! lo hicimos! we did it!). It is such an exciting time for folks and I’m extremely happy for my friends who are entering the next chapter of their lives.

In Nashville, I attended my buddie Erica’s graduation at Peabody. She was receiving her hard earned Master’s degree and I was very glad to be there to watch her walk. The ceremony was quite pleasant and lasted about 40 minutes. The weather was nice, 75 and sunny, but the sun eventually became a little overwhelming. Vandy goes big on graduations and we had a pretty nice free lunch afterwards. Tasty grilled chicken, barbecue, and ice cream sandwiches! yum! I greatly enjoyed the lunch and company. We sat in the shade and just relaxed…mmm..nice. Yesterday I helped Erica move out and she is back in Alabama..tear. Thankful for her.

I am still far away from graduation, but I finally feel like I’m making some progress. We got a lot of good data this past week, and we seem to be inching closer to publication. Hopefully the summer will provide much progress.

Other notable happenings:

• I made brick oven fire wood pizza! Quite delightful.
• Two baptisms on Sunday! hurrah! Encouraging Sunday morning.
• Bought flowers for me mums on Mother’s Day; Skyped with her too :)

FIN

PHOTO: Week 48 !

Look at my photo! its got rounded edges and letters! Years of research have taught me how to put letters on pictures. It is a skill that I am quite proud of…maybe.

Well this week actually went by really slow. This week was the 2nd week since classes ended, so I’ve been adjusting to the extra free time. There’s been a lot of changes in my daily schedule this wk. I’ve been sleeping earlier, waking up earlier, cooking foodies, doing the ab wheel,..all sorts of stuff. You might as well call me neoteric…that’s synonymous to new.

There has been plenty of little joyous events that took place this week. I shall highlight three of them.

A. Cookout on Tuesday at Katie g’s ! We grilled tasty kabobs on Tuesday at the “last” friend dinner of the semester. People are graduating and leaving us (e.g. Miss Erica) which makes me really sad. Katie and Josh will be leaving Nashville after this summer as well. We had extra folks there as well which made for a delightful night. Katie’s house/condo thing was pretty ridiculously nice. We had a little backyard area with waterfalls and stuff. Fancy stuff for fancy people. The good thing is that Tuesday was not goodbye for all of us. Erica will be graduating later this week so I’ll have time to see her before she heads out. Even after she leaves, she’ll only be in Memphis with my other friends so I’m sure we’ll keep in touch. Plus, I’ll be going to hers and Jason’s wedding later this summer so that’ll be cool. :)

B. I got my iPod nano this week! My watch band came as well so now I have this neat watch which is..neat. I got it primarily for running purposes. It has nike plus, and it’s small and lightweight. I got an armband for it too, so I hope I’ll be able to train properly to run the half under 2 hrs next time. Speaking of running, I woke up at 630 on Wednesday morning and ran 3 miles with Mr. Hutch. It was the first run since the half marathon, but I think it went fairly well. I am going to try to stay active this summer.

C. Prince’s spicy chicken! So on Thursday, I went to grab Prince’s spicy chicken with my buddy Josh and some of his friends..which are now my friends as well! Josh is heading back to MS and is soon heading to the Philippines for 2 years. It’s been a blessing to hang with Josh, Autumn, and Monica these last couple of months. I’ve been encouraged by their pursuit of Christ.

Prince’s is one of those places that I’ve heard a TON about. I’ve heard mixed things, but Josh and I had decided that we had to hit it up before he heads out..and so we did. When we walked in we were both like

Feels like Mississippi

haha. The chicken was real tasty, not too spicy. If I were a Yelp writer I would probably say that the chicken was scrumptious because the juicy chicken complemented the perfectly crunchy skin that contained smidgen of cajun spice mixed with distinct salty tastes that would satisfy the most ambitious taste buds. I’ll just say it was so good it makes you wanna slap yo momma!

Other notable happenings:

• I used a riding lawn mower for the first time in my life! It had always been push mowers previously.
• I played bball for the first time in months with Cguo and Marc
• Started the Hunger Games…ooooo

FIN

PHOTO: Week 47!

Hello there. So the photo above is a compilation of the happenings of the week. The week really just revolved around Saturday, race day. We started the week off running. Monday was 4 miles, Tuesday was 3 miles, and Wednesday was 2 miles. Thursday and Friday were carb days, and Saturday was race day. Sunday was “I regret running 13.1 miles” day. haha not really, I sort of enjoyed the race this year. I finished with a time of 2 hrs 2 mins and 36 seconds. My goal for this half was to get under 2 hrs, but I didn’t quite get it. I was a little disappointed but did shave off 8 mins from my time last year. So I guess I’ll have to do it again next year!

One thing I do enjoy about running the half marathon is just the feeling of being an “athlete”, feeling like you have fans. During the run, all I heard was “You’re doing awesome!”; “We love runners!”; “I wanna grow up to be just like you!”;…i made the last one up. I gave lots of high fives and stuff! Also I like the drinking stations because after I get done with the cup I just THROW IT ON THE GROUND!! like a BOSS. yup. It feels good.

After I finished the run I was like “I’m never doing this again”, but the more I think about it, the more I feel like it really wasn’t that bad. Running is slowly growing on me I think. In fact, I just purchased an ipod nano for running purposes. I also got an exercise band and a watch band. I’m pretty excited about it.

Other than the race, there were also some fun nights this week. 

• pizzaa crafting at katherine graddys
• game night [monopoly deal + apples to apples] at anna’s
• sunday shopping at green hillz

That is all.