A Good Experience...with a bad end

The time I spent in Warrenton, Missouri for my senior experience was fun. It was quite the experience. There are about 8 departments in the CEF International Headquarters, I worked in 6 of them. Monday I worked for International Department. There I updated the 2006 missionary and country files and set up new files for 2007. Tuesday I worked in the Fast Tracks Missions by preparing the new offices for the Fast Track to Missions. I took down cabinet doors, painted them and then put them back up. Wednesday I spent the day in the recruitment office. They had very little for me to do, and I could only work 2 hours. This forced me to work in the kitchen Wednesday and Thursday evening. I spent the Thursday morning working in the Mailbox Club, but due to a slow day in the Mailbox Club, I spent the afternoon in the CEF Press Room. I wrapped up on Friday working in the USA Ministries department.

I could on and on talking about what I learned and what I liked. I did do that, my Senior Experience Journal is 7 pages long. I'll try to make it short. I enjoyed working for them because they were so nice. I was told of how much of a blessing I was to be there. I truly feel like I fulfilled a need. Many times I was told that the job was not hard (or sometimes not even boring), but rather time-consuming. Because I was doing, they weren't doing it and they could get to more important things. I learned how to do new things like painting and taking door and putting up door. I got to meet several new people from department heads to Fast Track Students, and hear their thoughts on the program. They were a joy to work with. I enjoyed staying the VIP suite in the educational wing. It was two rooms big with its own private bathroom. It was a sweet suite :-). There was always a kind atmosphere there. Everyone says hi to you, whethere they work there regularly or volunteer for the week.

I always like how I was introduced there. There are so many ways how Cindy could have introduced me. She could have said, "This is Graham, a student for Christopher Dock on his Seniro Experience" or "This is Graham Holcomb. He did CYIA for two years and is interested in CMI." If she really wanted to get on my good side, she could have said "This is Graham Holcomb, quizzer extrodinaire, 12th place quizzer on the Top 50 Quizzers List." Nope, I get introduced as "This is Graham Holcomb, he's a friend of Bill Elgin." It kind of got old after a while, but it did get me far. Aparrently, everyone knows Bill. It did get me far. Paid VIP suite (which no Fast Track student has got into the first year). 3 paid meals for all five days. It was all good. This was a good experience for me. I would gladly do it again.

This would have been the perfect trip, except the ending wasn't so perfect. As I arrived at the airport at 5 PM for my 6:30 flight, it began to rain, freezing rain. Everything seemed to go well. I checked in my luggage, went through security, and sat at my gate, waiting to board. Well, the time came to board, but the gate wasn't opening. There was heavy freezing rain and the plane wasn't allowed to fly until it was light freezing rain. They were going to delay the flight an hour. If it let up during that delay, they would quickly load passengers and luggage, de-ice, and take off quickly. 50 minutes later it did lighten up. It took them 2o minutes do everything, but it wasn't fast enough. So they sat us on the plane to wait until it let up. We sat and sat and sat. The freezing rain came down harder and harder. Little did we know that every 15 minutes roughly 5 flights were being cancelled. 2 1/2 hours later, they decided to cancel our flight, at around 10:30 PM. I'm not sure what upset me more: my flight being cancelled or having to wait so long for my flight being cancelled. They gave me a replacement flight, it wasn't until 3 PM the next day!Because since all the other flights were cancelled, hotel rooms were sold out nearby. I had to spend the whole night in the airport. There was only one food place open that I could eat, something I hadn't done since noon that day. I had to go reclaim by bags. Since I had much valuables, such as my laptop, camera and phone, I was afraid to fall asleep, in fear I wouldn't have it when I woke up. I stayed up the whole night, randomly wandering about the terminal looking for a signal for my laptop's wireless connection (Found one, but it required being charged). Some of the time I spent calling other air liners, seeing if I can find a better, earlier flight. I found out that American Airlines had two earlier flights: 9:05 AM and 12:15 PM. As soon as the ticket agency opened, I presented them my ticket and asked for a single seat on an earlier flight. Sure enough, there was. I felt so relieved. I got through security and waited oh so impatiently to get on the flight. The flight was slightly delayed because it needed to be de-iced and the door wasn't shut all the way. But finally at 10 AM, after 15 long hours in the airport, I finally escaped! I finally arrived in Philadelphia 12:30, 15 hours after I was suppose to. I never want to go through that again. Most boring thing ever. I had to buy a book to keep me entertained. On a good note, I got a lot of quizzing done.

Speaking of which, not being there was torture! I called in the middle of practice cuz I needed questions! I practiced so much during my free evenings I could predict the questions I was going to ask! I looked at situations and numbers. I memorized lists and Acts 2:1-13. I need match practice and practice buzzing more than ever. I missed you guys in practice! Keep practicing!

Countdown to the first quizmatch of 2007:
7 days, 2o hours, 22 minutes

Question of the Post:
List the 5 that no one has left for the sake... ("sake" is key! That means you should know it by now!)

There for the first practice, not there for the second practice

First practice was Thursday at the Deitrick's house. Got to fill out the secret sponser forms and meet the new quizzers. Everyone was there, even Spring City quizzers of the past: Bethany and Brandon. I don't know how to describe it. Weird things happened (well, weirder than normal). Michael was always the first one to quiz out. Talk about miracles! He usually errors out in practice. Don't get me wrong, I did quiz out every time. I know the material well. I just don't jump in fast enough. My buzzer drills have shown it: my buzzer speed needs to be faster. So how do I feel this? Every year I say, this is going to be MY year. Well, for this year...it's going to be OUR year. I can't gurantee anything, but I can easily see us getting team bonus, if we don't, 3 quiz outs wouldn't sound weird either. This team is going to do great. We need to get someone in the swing of being the fourth one for team bounus. I have high anticipations for this team.

I enjoyed being at practice. I got to see my friends that I haven't seen in a long time. We were crazy and had fun. It upset me that I won't be able to attend our next practice. The next practice is during my senior experience. Senior experience is when the seniors get off a week to pursue 30 hours of service or job shadowing over a span of four to five days. I will not be in the area at all between Sunday and Friday. I will be in Warrenton, Missouri. For my senior experience, I am working for Child Evangelism Fellowship, the same ministry I work for in the summer. This time, though, I will be working with the international scale. In Warrenton is the International Headquarters of CEF. I will be an intern, taking part in both job shadowing and service. I will be doing everything from the Mailbox Club to building and perhaps painting. I have been told pack to dress sloppily and semi-professional. It will be interesting. The temperature change I'm not sure I'm ready for. Today, it got up to 75 (I wore shorts)!, but Missouri has been in the high 40s the past few days, and the highest it will get will be 57 on Friday. I'm also not sure about traveling. It's not the fear of flying. I haven't really taken public transportation alone before, and the instructions for meeting someone to get me from St. Louis to Warrenton is unclear. Well, it doesn't matter because anything I allow the Lord to do through me will always have a positive outcome. I fly home Friday evening, so I'll see everyone Saturday...unless you're from Dock....because I'm skipping Senior Retreat, Senior losers!!!

Countdown to the first quizmatch of 2007:
2 weeks, 21 hours, 12 minutes

Quizzing question of the post:
What 4 were the people doing in the days of Noah?