Boxes of light

Today was my first day of classes at Colorado University Denver. The campus is a very different place when school is in session. Between the three schools that make use of the Auraria facilities there are roughly 50,000 students. It makes you feel like you're part of a human ant colony. The classes I had today were the lecture and lab for Biological Anthropology and History of Immigration and Ethnicity. I don't think either of them are going to be easy but I do think I'm going to enjoy them.

Today was also the first time I rode Denver's transit system. As a C.U.D. student I can ride the bus for free and I live 2 minutes from a bus stop that goes strait to campus so it makes the most sense. I talked with a guy named John the whole way to school this morning. He's originally from Anchorage, Alaska but earned his bachelor's at Oxford and then lived in London for 2 years while earning his masters and then moved too Denver 4 years ago. Needless too say we had an interesting conversation.

My last class on Mondays doesn't get out until around 8:30 and tonight we got dismissed into a strong thunderstorm. It was beautiful. Pouring rain, giant fingers of lighting, and earth shaking rumbles of thunder all set against the backdrop of downtown Denver. Because the windows on the bus are tented when you look at the sky scrappers at night you can't really see the outline of the buildings you can only see the offices with their lights on. So from where I was sitting it looked like the whole of downtown was comprised of floating boxes of light, it was amazing.

There's more I like too say but it's late and I'm tired so I'll try to write some more here later.

Where has the week gone?

I can't believe it's already Thursday, I feel like I just got here the other day and now I only have one more "work day" left in the week. It's been a productive week so far and Denver is starting to feel like home.

I spent most of today taking care of school related things at Colorado University at Denver Out of all the schools I've dealt with over the years C.U.D. has by far been the most professional, helpful, and just all around easy to deal with. (Yes, that is a plug for a school. Next thing you know I'll sprout wings and fly.) :) I'll be taking one History course, Biology, and Spanish. I'm not looking forward to the last two but they're both required core classes. The plus is they take up so many hours that I only needed the three classes to get 12 hours for the semester. Also, I've felt that I needed to learn Spanish for some time now and have prayed about what I should do about that. I'm looking at this as the Lord's answer to that prayer.

On the apartment front, I still don't have one but I do have a call in to lease one I looked at earlier in the week. Hopefully everything works out and I have a place to come back too before I leave Sunday.

I've taken to doing my Bible study (and other reading) in City Park. The scenery is awesome and the vibe there is relaxing. Right now I'm reading through Acts and Lamentations. (Brad is getting ready to do a sermon series from Lamentations so I'm cheating and reading ahead.) ;)

I'm really enjoying Lamentations, for a couple reasons. First, it flies in the face of the "Prosperity Gospel" as it clearly states that God caused all the suffering experienced by the nation of Israel. (For fun go through the book and count how many times the author directly attributes their suffering to God.)

Second, when something bad happens people generally assume that God must have "accidentally" let it "slip through." In Lamentations we see a God who is so passionately in love with His people that He will stop at nothing to bring them back to Himself. What person let's the people they care about the most continue to harm themselves and does nothing to intervene, regardless of how harsh they may have to be? An evil one. For God to be truly loving He MUST do whatever is needed to reconcile His people back to Himself. How can we NOT love a God who loves us that much? This also touches on God's Holiness. For God to be Holy He cannot tolerate sin and must punish it. Ironically, He does this by using other sinners, committing sin, to punish Israel for their sins. Which just proves we're all deserving of God's judgement. Thankfully, Jesus came and lived a perfect sinless life, died, and rose from the dead so that whoever believes in Him as the only payment for sin can receive eternal life.

That's all I've got for today, later gang. :)