Crazy days and pictures

It’s about 12:20am here in 22H, also known as “22 hotness” according to my roomies. From 10pm until 1:45am I am screaming for productivity but still keep catching myself checking e-mail or facebook.

Going to bed before 1am has been a Herculean (no, nonexistent) achievement for me up here lately. We have 4 book report-type assignments and 3 real articles due at midnight Friday night. Feels almost like undergrad again, except that here I might actually sleep for a few minutes.

I’ve been posting some pictures on facebook, but I think these links should work whether or not you have facebook.

Memorial Day Album

WJI New York Album

I really love the city. Not always in a completely virtuous, compassionate way. Maybe I just like it. I like the big tall buildings and the views and subways, even though I’ve blown hours up here learning them the hard way, once ending up in the wrong borough.

I like having a balcony looking out into a place that never stops. I’m not thrilled that the only star I see…actually isn’t a star, it’s probably a planet. Nevermind.

But other things make up for not having stars. Going to the top of the Rockefeller Center or sitting on big rocks in Brooklyn beside the river with friends across from the Manhattan skyline…

Or wandering dozens of Manhattan blocks just to see what is there while listening to Jerram Barrs talk about Francis Schaeffer (free seminary class lectures online from Covenant Seminary!)…

Or jogging to see the sunset and to read the Psalms from the pier at 42nd street on Manhattan’s west coast…

Or melting in front of a construction site the size of 4 city blocks where thousands died and where two massive buildings once stood.

An art therapy project on display nearby shows crayon drawings of burning towers with inside jokes and simple I-miss-you’s written in children’s handwriting.

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I love church up here, too. But I suppose I am doing the same thing that I did back home—going to a PCA church on occasion and focusing involvement in a church planted by Heritage Bible Church.

In the mornings I go to Redeemer Presbyterian, pastored by Tim Keller, and in the evenings I go to Williamsburg Church, pastored by Robert Elkin.

I’ve had a great time with Rob and the group at the Sunday services and at the Memorial Day cookout followed by ultimate Frisbee, grueling ultimate Frisbee.

Brannon came up to visit and introduced me to a small part of the live music indie scene, seeing shows by Steven Delopoulos and Kelly McRae.

Brannan, a Messianic Jew named Dalci, and I spent the later part of Memorial Day together on a rooftop, in Kashkaval restaurant for super expensive appetizers, and then to the top of the Rockefeller Center, where his is a security guard.

More again soon. Sad to be leaving Saturday.

Posted by mgemb at May 31, 2007 01:01 AM