I write this to you from the Orlando airport, where my long layover has just turned into an even longer layover thanks to a half hour delay. I arrived here from Tallahassee at about 3:30 this afternoon. I won’t be taking off from Orlando until 7:55, assuming their current estimate is any good. And I’m not even flying into Hartford. It was cheaper to go through Boston. So when my next flight touches down I’ve still got a long drive home ahead of me. It’ll be well after midnight before I get to bed tonight.
This past week was a buffer week. All the students had gone home the week before after they finished their finals, but I had to stay in town to work my state job before taking off for my vacation. I’ve been in Tallahassee getting as much done around the house as possible. As soon as the fall semester began it was non-stop commotion. I was able to move in my things and get situated throughout the semester, but there always seemed to be those jobs around the house that I’d like to get done if only I had the house to myself without the threat of anyone coming by unexpectedly. Sure, we got every Monday off to do with as we pleased but honestly, who wants to spend that day taking care of projects around the house? They weren’t things that needed to get done, just things that it’d be nice to have done. Things like replacing the thirty-year-old curtains in our family room (that, by the way, is not hyperbole) or hanging up the speakers for my surround sound system or finding a better way to store Luke’s bike. I’m happy to say that all of these tasks have been completed and that my house has probably never looked as good as it does right now. Sadly, as soon as my roommates return home it’ll probably never look this good again either.
I didn’t have this week off from my job at DOEA. I worked five hours Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The office is starting to quiet down now that people are taking leave for Christmas. (Excuse me: for the holidays.) I had no shortage of work though. For those of you who don’t know what I do, most of my hours are spent entering data into an online database collected from our volunteer counselors. These counselors are all over the state of Florida talking to people who have questions or problems with their Medicare or Medicaid or whatever. Those counselors fill out a form after each counseling session detailing what they talked about and the demographics of who they talked to. Those forms are sent to me. Between November 15 and December 31 is Medicare Part D open enrollment, so there’s a lot more counseling going on right now than at any other time of year. That means lots of forms. I’m doing the same job now that I was doing last year, only last year I was working full time. It’s going to be a real trick to get all the work done that’s been given to me to do between now and the end of January.
So now I’m going home. I’m really looking forward to this trip home since I really haven’t been home in a year. Sure, I was in Connecticut this summer but that trip was all business. I was there for just a few days and most of my time was spent fund raising for my job with the Navigators. This trip will be much more relaxing. I do have some fund raising activities planned and I also have one other Nav related project to take care of while I’m home, but this trip is primarily about spending time with my family. I’m looking forward to being able to give them quality time.
The Sunday after Christmas I’m going to be giving the sermon at Wethersfield United Methodist Church. That Sunday is “Student Sunday” and they figured since they’re supporting a campus minister who will just happen to be in town that week they might as well ask me to speak. (I’m putting words in their mouth; I have no idea what their decision-making process looked like.) I’m not entirely certain what I’ll be saying, but I do have some note sketched out. I’ll pull my thoughts together sometime next week.
What is this Nav related project I’m talking about? Well, the big one is creating a new website for our ministry. I’m really excited about this one. Up to this point we’ve had our site stored on the FSU servers. Soon it’ll be on the Navigators’ servers (the hosting will still be free too). The site is going to use WordPress as its content management system, the same CMS I use on my website. This will make the site very easy to update, even by people who aren’t especially tech savvy. That’s my vision. I don’t want our website’s level of functionality to be dependant upon having a student or staff member around who knows a lot about web design. I want anyone to be able to keep this thing up-to-date. By the end of the break that should be a reality.
Those are the things on my mind right now. Sometime over the break I’ll write a post reflecting on my first semester as a campus minister. I haven’t spent a lot of time processing that yet though, so it’ll come toward the end of the break. Until then, safe travels and enjoy your time with family and friends. Merry Christmas!
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