Anderson Hall

With the exception of a few months over the last three Summers, Anderson Hall has been my home for the past four years. Most Hardin Simmons residents live in the dorm for two years, as is required by the HSU handbook. I however am working on my fourth. For the past seven semesters Anderson has been the place where I returned at the end of the day. Some of my fondest memories have been in the walls of this building.

Freshman year - August 14th 2004 I moved into room 122 with my best friend Geoffrey Turner. Freshman year was crazy. Between getting locked out of the dorm our first night to having our suite mates set off black cats in our room life in 122 was never boring. Frequently graced by overnight visitors such as Lance Huston someone was always in our room and willing to make a late night run to Wendy's or Wataburger. We had a quote board that we made out of part of my bed and only two quotes ever made the board: "We the British have hated the French for years, you the United States have just joined the club." - Simon Cowell, and "For losing the Superbowl the Eagles don't go away empty handed. For finishing second they receive the Stanley Cup" - ESPN Magazine columnist.

Sophomore year - Room 208 was by far the coolest dorm room Hardin Simmons has ever seen. Room 208 is located in just the right position of the building that it is several feet larger than most Anderson rooms. During the 2005-2006 school year Anderson Hall room 208 housed two beds, a large desk/entertainment center, a mini fridge, an end table for toiletries, two TV's each with separate cable hook ups, surround sound stereo, with speakers suspended from the ceiling, two couches, one of them raised on a platform behind the other to form stadium seating, and walking around room. It was by far the coolest dorm room in Anderson's history. Again living with Geoffrey was always interesting always making room for late night Wendy's runs. During our sophomore year, Geoffrey proposed to his now wife, and I met and began dating my now fiancee. Things had mellowed out much more since freshman year. With the exception of the occasional rowdy attacks on the two R.A.'s on our floor Purkey, and Pool.

Junior year - If room 208 is the largest room you can get on campus room 248 is the smallest. A single "closet room" there was barley enough room to turn around, but I didn't complain much since the room was complimentary with my new job as Anderson Hall Second Floor Pound Side Resident Assistant. By this time Geoffrey had married and I was living on my own room with the responsibility of making sure that everyone else kept their rooms clean. Between constantly telling freshman (and Hunter Mangrum) to be quiet the new job came with the role of "dorm police." Between finding beer, pornography, marijuana, cocaine, liquor, girls, and even snakes in several dorm rooms our group of RA's became fast friends (with the exception of the third floor pound side RA). Bobby Cooley, Ryan Vanderland, Josh Knapp, Casey Jones, Jay Patterson and myself had some amazing times playing dbaba, 4th flooring it (Anderson only has three floors), and playing crotch bear. It was an unforgettable year.

Senior year - As one of the senior RA's I know am living in another oversized room, room 105. The room that is directly under the room from my sophomore year (208). Still living on my own this year I have had more room than I know what to do with. My room is a makeshift office, kitchen, entertainment room, bedroom, and bathroom. Having proposed, to my now fiancee I will only spend one semester in this room, a semester that is almost over. This year I have realized just how quickly time can pass. Having broken my foot I have spent the majority of the semester hopping around my room. And it mostly feels as thought I am simply waiting here. Waiting to move out, waiting to get married, waiting to graduate.

Well my waiting time is almost over. I am now spending my last nights in Anderson Hall because as of December 16th Anderson will no longer be my place of residence. I am moving out, because I am getting married, and shortly after that I will graduate. Seven semesters I have walked the halls and staircases of Anderson. I have met lifelong friends. I have experienced once in a lifetime opportunities, I have studied and I have played. I have caused trouble and I have worked. I have pulled all nighters and I have slept through class. I have made Anderson my home.

My Thoughts: September 14th 2004 - December 16th 2007...Not a bad run!!

I Never Went to Lucy's House

This week for thanksgiving I will be going to Alabama for my first Wood Family Reunion. Out of the generations that are represented at our family reunion I am the only one who has the responsibility of carrying the namesake of the Wood family forward. I have grown up hearing stories of my great grandparents, but I have very little memory of my great grandmother, none of my great grandfather. My experience with them are stories and granite. I have never been to Lucy's house. In fact I never knew Lucy. I never knew what a family reunion on the fourth of July was like. The oldest dog I remember was Smokey who I quickly found out when I was young was not a squirrel hunting dog of a legend that Spot was. I have never had fresh milk from a cow. I have never played dominoes and honestly I don't know how. All of these things are things of legend in a family where I hold the namesake.

This week stories will be told about people that I never met or who had died before I had ever been born. People will remember things that have been outdated by my generation. To many people the stories and legends would me nothing but not to me. I will hear stories about people that I never knew and those stories will mean something to me because they are who I am. To me my last name isn't simply a name but it is a heritage that I have fallen into. My last name is a point a pride because of the people that it connects me to, people I have the privilege of calling family. The stories that I have heard all my life and will surely hear again are the same stories that I will tell to my son when I explain to him that his last name isn't just a name but a connection to a proud heritage that is our family. And even though he will never go to Lucy's house he will know the stories about her and about so many other people that have added to the our family legacy.

Heaven

Revelation 21

If a friend asked me the question, “What is Heaven like,” I would respond to them by saying that it is forever being in the presence of God. I would read to them vs. 3 and 4, “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be among them, and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” A God that is so Holy in other parts of scripture it is impossible to even see in his presence will not only dwell among us but we will be his people. In being the people of God we will be cared for by someone who conquered and defeated death, mourning, crying, and pain. This action of conquering wasn’t simply for the purpose of freeing us fore freedom sake but it was freeing us for the sake of God himself. God wants us to be his people, he wants to dwell among us and he wants to wipe the tears from our eyes. Heaven is where there is a God who longs to dwell with his people.

Ouch pt. 2

So today is the day that I have my surgery. Dr. Stephenson, who is an excellent physician will operate soon. Let me quickly recap for you. I am now in Lubbock (thanks to my wonderful fiancee) and I went and saw the doctor on Friday. At first the doctor's P.A. said that it didn't look like it was broken and that it would just need to rest and let the swelling go down. Dr. Stephenson came into the room and made the other guy look like a complete idiot. Just after we had gotten excited over the fact that I would not be having surgery the real doctor informed us that in fact my foot was broken and in fact I would need surgery.

That leads us to today. It is 8:30 I am have to go the Covenant Lakeside hospital to have blood work done at 9:00 and then at some point this afternoon I will be having two bio-pins placed into my foot. The pins we be able to absorb into my bone after it is healed. The doctor will send a scope into my foot, clean out around the bone and then place the pins in, easy enough right? No! Yet again a doctor has told me how strange the break in my foot is. "I only see one of these about every two or three years."

The bio-pins that are being placed in my foot have a metallic end that drives the bio-pin into the broken section. The metallic portion is then driven out another section of my bone and out another section of my foot, OUCH!! After the bio-pin is in place they snip off the excess pin sew me up and I am done. I would like to just go ahead and say that I am not looking forward to this. I hope everyone else has a grander day than me, but hey on the plus side I was promised ice-cream tonight.

Thought of the day: OUCH!!

Ouch pt. 1

It was any idle Tuesday afternoon when I was leaving my Intro to Marriage and Family class satisfied with myself for receiving an 89 on a recent test. I quickly reached into the left pocked of my three day worn faded blue jeans to retrieve my cell phone. I flipped open my razor punched in the numbers of a friend in order to enjoy a leisurely conversation on my brisk walk back to the dorm. I walked down out of the doors of Abilene Hall, walked down the sidewalk and stepped off of the curb onto the street. The only problem was that in my senior year at H-SU, after having at least seven classes in Abilene Hall on this day I forgot that the curb at Abilene Hall is twice as high as that of other curbs.

"POP!" My ankle went sideways bearing my weight on my ankle and sending sharp pains through my leg and foot. I immediately hung up the phone without even waiting for an answer and began limping back to the dorm. After hobbling twenty yards I once again grabbed my phone mashed the number 2 speed dial and attempted to call Ashley, no answer. Slapping my phone close and re-opening it, all in one motion, I pressed hard on the number 5 speed dial, no answer from Dad either. On the third try i finally got in contact with my mother. "Mom, I think i broke my ankle."

After receiving instructions on keeping my foot iced and elevated, and grabbing a pair of crutches owned by Anderson Hall I contacted Geoffrey who willingly agreed to drive me to Dr. J's (our insurance approved medical clinic). When we walked into Dr. J's we were immediately met with hostility when I was informed that the office manager would not accept my insurance since i did not have a physical copy of my card. After begging and pleading, having my father beg a plead and asking to speak to the office manager who was not there I stormed out of the office speaking very loudly to the remainder of the people waiting in the waiting room, "I hope they give you all better care than they gave me!"

After re-weighing my options The best course of action was determined to be paying the extra fifty dollar co-pay and going to Hendricks memorial for medical attention. With my foot in writhing with an intense sense of pain We waited, and waited, and waited. We called Pizza Hut and had a large pizza with half pepperonis and half hamburger meat and then we waited. Geoff went and got my laptop and season two of scrubs on DVD and we waited. We watched three episodes of scrubs and they finally called me back into a room and had x-rays taken of my foot. After this I continued to wait for two hour before I finally saw a doc (this allowed me to watch an episode of dirty jobs as well as an episode of House).

When the doctor finally arrived after five hours of waiting he told me what the deal was. Good news my ankle was not broken. Bad news something else was. His exact words to me were, "I have never seen anything like this before." After reviewing my x-rays he wasn't quite sure what he was looking at so he enlisted the help of an orthopedic surgeon that just so happened to be walking by at the time. After consulting the surgeon the news was grim. I had fractured a very strange part of my foot and would most likely need surgery. If i had only have skipped class that day.

Rain Rain Go Away

As of Friday September 14th I am officially engaged to be married. It was a very interesting experience, amazing, wonderful, and I am relieved I don't have to face the anxiety again. I put so much careful thought, consideration and planning into the event that I almost missed the beauty of it as it quickly passed through my life.

Growing up I never was much of a planner. I simply did what I wanted when I wanted to but as I have gotten older and particularly since I began college planning has slowly taken a larger hold on my life. See before college parents tend to due the majority of the planning (for males this tends to have been mostly pertaining to mealtimes.) but college begins and home is has become a place for visiting each second of the day has to be filled doing something. When I first obtained the "planning" responsibility I didn't handle it well. As a result of poor planning skills I was lonely and board often. But alas, as I have grown in my collegiate years so have my planning abilities (homework, work, class, meals, church, social time, time spend with my girlfriend, ect.). So much in fact that when I spend a large amount of time planning something and it doesn't go the way I envisioned chaos is soon to follow. Such a time was it on Friday.

I had everything planned to the last detail for how I was to propose to Ashley, then on Thursday while traveling to Alabama (my ideally planned proposal location) I heard the forecast, rain...all weekend long. Not wanting to lose my cool I did not panic (at least not immediately). I quickly began text messaging my brother-in-law who was located in the seat directly behind me in the van full of my family and Ashley. We were text messaging in order to covertly discuss the looming dangers of a weekend full of isolated showers. In the end we decided it best to hold out and hope the rain would break.

Friday, after sending Ashley away with my mother and sisters for the day I began putting my plan into action while keeping a weather eye on the chance of precipitation. While the news said there was a thirty percent chance and the dark gray clouds threatened rain the ground remained dry. It was looking good, everything was going to worked as planned. I had received to supreme confirmation in the fact that it would not rain by the premiere weather expert in Dunbar, Alabama (population 7) my own Grandfather. He was wrong. Twenty minutes after the said prediction the rain came in the in brute force (the official Alabama term that is used is gullywarsher). At this point I lost it. The plan hinged on the participation of the elements as the occasion would take place at a specific spot outside. After demanding the weatherman's resignation I took a deep breath collected my thoughts and began freaking out all over again. Even if the rain did stop the ground would now be to wet for the setup that was the center point of my plan would sink (quite literally). I had to go to plan "B" which I quickly realized I had forgotten to make...again with the freaking out.

It was my brother-in-law that came to the rescue. He took me aside and said to me the most prophetic words I had heard all day, "Joel, its going to be perfect." Kyle convinced told me that the planning I did was great but what made it perfect wasn't all of the little things I had planned but the event it self. That night I was asking someone to spend the rest of her life with me. Thanks to Kyle I regained my composure moved my setup 12 feet under the protection of a covered porch and enjoyed to perfect evening and the beauty that was the moment that I said, "Ashley, will you marry me?"

Oh by the way it had stopped raining.