Romeo + Sourdough: Summit Semester Week 4

We're a month down! Two more to go. That's so crazy to think about! Here's what happened in the fourth week of southern Colorado living!

What's happened this week:

To start off, the movie night on Sunday was the bomb.com. We watched Life is Beautiful (Italian foreign film about WWII) and it's now probably one of my favorite movies. We had a great discussion afterwards about the meaning of the film and what we can take away from it. I laughed and cried and all I can say to you is to go watch it for yourself. It was made about 20 years ago but it was chosen as the best foreign film of that year. Go watch it! You won't be disappointed. After the movie, my sourdough buddy Khyri and I made our yeast starter! It was so much fun. We decided it would be fun to name it Sir Henry (he's our pet/semester project). It was a pretty great Sunday.

Monday, we had a “choose your own adventure” day, where you could pick one of three different hiking/trail/nature places to go and spend the day there. There was a group that went to a reservoir, one group went on a 3+ hike (with snow-capped mountains!), and my group went to a lake. We hammocked and talked and took some pretty nifty photos and I even napped a bit. After dinner that evening, we had our girls night and it was very successful! We had face masks and painted nails and had a dance party. We also played the “question game” – pretty much you can only talk in questions. You're not supposed to answer the questions asked to you, just ask different people different things. If you take too long answering, you get downgraded to the lowest ranked chair and everyone else moves up until you get a “queen”. It's pretty fun and super hard. We finished the party and an hour later, I was only talking in questions. But overall, it was a pretty relaxing day off.

Tuesday was filled with work crews and small groups! For work crews, I weeded the grassed area around the basketball court (for 3 hours). It was a very long day, but I got to hang out with some great people and have awesome conversations about pretty much anything imaginable. It felt good to work hard and the weather was just perfect for us to work outside! I learned how to correctly throw a Frisbee that evening and did so while talking in gibberish inspired from the Chef from the Muppets. If you've seen the Muppets, you know who I'm referring to and you know how silly he talks. Well try talking like that for an hour straight. I couldn't stop laughing. One of the guys (Grant) and I only converse in that language now and I can't help but laugh every time. He's my friend Gurnt. And I'm his pal Burger. Small groups was pretty awesome too. We took our first trip to town, to a McDonald's and got fries and sundaes and just talked about our week and discussed an article. We had great conversations and I'm so blessed to have those six girls as part of my small group. Afterwards, we went to City Market (local grocery store) and got ourselves some ice cream and fruit. We laughed the entire way home (about a twenty minute drive) and everyone back at the lodge was eyeing our ice cream. That night was spent with lots of laughing as I played pool with Emma and surprisingly won. She would miss all the obvious shots and I would get all the super tricky and impossible ones. We laughed so hard because she has much more experience and I have about none, and yet I would always win. Imagine that.

Wednesday was a pretty rainy day, so it was quite relaxed. At lunch, the music director at the church we attend while here (Jason), came to talk to the musically talented of our group of students about helping to lead worship on Sundays in the future. We just introduced ourselves and sometime next week we're supposed to have more of an audition and we'll work from there! It'll be fun! That night, the power went off for an hour due to the storm. I went down to the sports court with Micaela to play Frisbee for about 15 minutes before we decided it was too wet and cold haha. But it was fun to bond in the dark!

On Thursday, Kyri and I made our sourdough bread! We made three loaves and ate one right out of the oven (we shared a few pieces). It was so delicious. We sat in the kitchen to read because we couldn't bare to leave the bread while it was cooking. We plan on making three loaves twice a week, and we're pretty excited about it. The real challenge will be making it last three days until we can make another batch!

I was hit with a bad case of homesickness on Friday. Not being away from home for this long and seeing old pictures of my baby brother mixed together to make a pretty emotional day. But I was put in the kitchen for work crew that day to organize (something I quite enjoy) the pantry, so that helped. We can't always have great days, and that one, for me, wasn't the best. But that's okay. Sleep helps and community helps and there's a new day 24 hours later.

Saturday did not feel like a Saturday. There was a lot of thunder and lightning all throughout class, which made it a little hard to concentrate. But it was such a wonderful day nonetheless. I got the best needed talk with my grandparents and loved every minute. After, there was a group read on Romeo + Juliet, which was hilarious because the guys were reading girls parts and vise versa and everyone had an accent. There was mandatory fun times (“fundatory”) and another night of swing dancing. It was a lovely spent Saturday.

What I've been learning this week:

I've come to the realization that it's okay to focus on me sometimes. While I've been here, I've come across some friends here that have had bad days or are going through rough things, and I'm always there to help and comfort them. I think that it's good to be there when a friend needs me, but I've found that if I am going through something or I'm having a rough day, I'm allowed to process that and focus on me for a bit. I sometimes tend to downgrade my tough situations because someone is having it worse, but we all have things we go through and it's not always the same “level”. God gives us what we can handle, and it's okay if others have it worse than us – that means that they can handle more than we can (not bad). That's something I've had to learn this week. That it's okay if I take time for myself for my problems, and while it's good to be there to comfort others for their problems, I don't have to ignore mine in the process.

What's going on next week:

Monday we're taking a day trip to Ouray, Colorado! It's about a 2 hour drive along the million dollar highway. A group of us are leaving earlier that morning (3am) to go on a hike that's peaked at 14,200 feet (called a 14er) called Mount Sneffels. Best mountain name ever! The elevation gain is 2900 feet and is about 6 miles round trip. Please be praying for that group – I'll be a part of it! It'll be very cold (probable snow-capped mountains here too!) and a really hard hike. I've never done something this hardcore so I'm kinda terrified. But getting to the top should be super amazing. Let's hope it's all worth it in the end! (be prepared for lots of pictures next week)

If you want to stay up to date on all the fun that's happening here in Colorado, make sure to subscribe to this blog! I'll (probably) see you back here next week with some more fun stuff here at Summit!

Thanks for following along with me as I attempt to do life!

Blessings,

Becca

PJ night on Sunday to watch the movie! So fun.

The massage train during girl's night! 

The morning fog on the mountains is beautiful here!