So, here I am, in Boston!  At least for this week, anyway.  It's nice and I like it a lot, although there isn't really much to do because school hasn't started and almost everyone I know either isn't here yet or went home after NROTC Indoc.  And, of course, I miss all of you back home and want desperately to see you again!  So come and visit me!  Please! 

Saturday I leave for the hiking trip, which ought to be pretty awesome, and then once I come back from that I'll actually start college for real!  And then I'll have stuff to tell you all, like you are already saying, because you've started and I haven't.  But anyway, I'm kind of just rambling with this one, so, I think I'll press "Publish Entry" now....

Well, I have said my goodbyes, and in about seven hours I will leave Murfreesboro.  I am incredibly excited to begin this new part of my life, and at the same time I'm horribly sad to leave my friends and family.  But they will come visit, and they will write letters, and I will write letters, and I will be back for Thanksgiving and maybe even earlier.  In some ways, this big change will be very challenging for all of us, but I know we will make it through.  And so I will go confidently in the direction of my future, trusting in the Lord to guide me in the proper direction.  I encourage all of you to do the same, and I pray that He continues to lead us on paths that share many intersections and some stretches along the road together. 

Someone said to me recently that this is not goodbye, only goodnight.  You are right.  Goodbye implies an end; this is only just the beginning!  Goodnight.

For those of you who have seen the movie "Troy", I really like a lot of the mini-speeches given in that movie.  However, I have recently discovered a whole new level of meaning in one particular speech given by Achilles, because I am, in a way, living what he talks about at the moment...

"Every moment is more precious because we are doomed.  You will never be lovelier than you are now.  We will never be here again."

Moving to college means that a lot of things in my life are ending.  But a lot of things are just beginning, as well.  And some things that seem as if they've begun far too late may be that way for a reason, and perhaps they don't have to end now, if we don't want them to.  I will deal with that in the next week, and we'll decide what to do from there, I suppose.

"I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope."--Psalm 130:5

So hey everybody, just started up my phusebox and it's obviously pretty sparse at this point....and you all make me jealous with all of your photos and blogs and crap....but I'll catch up soon enough!