Greetings, Friends and Family Greetings, Friends and Family
What a crazy year 2005 has been, certainly no time for boredom; so many things to do, and so many wonderful people in my life that I wish I had more time to properly keep in touch with.
Work, of course, takes up a lot of my time. I’ve been at Cubic for two and a half years now. No longer an intern, different projects are fighting over my time. But it’s not without its perks; in June, I attended Sun’s JavaOne conference, in San Francisco —totally fun in a geeky way and it was awesome staying in the heart of downtown at Union Square as well. I also got to learn a new programming language this year, C#, jumping straight away into some of the more complex features of the language like threads!
I just recently got back from a second trip for work, this one for a project to which, technically, I’d never been assigned, but had been doing little work for off and on that was outside the expertise of the other people on that project. The result? A trip to Madrid for nine days to demo the Live Monitoring Station which controls/monitors a giant game of laser-tag between tanks.
I was really excited to go to Spain , my first trip abroad. It was very different than anywhere I've ever been before, but also very beautiful. Segovia , visited on our one sight-seeing day, partic-ularly impressed me—a modern medieval town complete with castle, cathedral, and a first century AD roman aqueduct. Being in a country where I don’t speak the language was a little overwhelming at times, but a lot of charades seem to get me by. The food was absolutely delicious at times (the seafood paella) but frustrating at other times—they seem to serve jamón (ham) on practically EVERYTHING whether or not the menu mentions that ingredient.
But this year has hardly been all work and no play; I’ve played my share of beach volleyball, and softball with the Cubic team in the city league; I’ve been sewing felt Christmas ornaments to make my tree a little more decorated this year, and read a lot of books—everything from Harry Potter to Joshua Harris.
Early on in the year, I signed up for the emerging IT ministry at the Rock. It sounded sooo up my alley, using technology to help build community within the church. But I came to discover that programming after too much was a little too much of a good thing and migrated to other ministries, the missions and altar call ministries. The IT Ministry did have one particularly wonderful impact though, connecting me with a warm friendly bible study group, walking distance from home, associated with Flood, a different local church.
Helping at altar call is a lot like my old student job tutoring but with a little more Jesus, a little less unix, and a lot more prayer. The missions ministry (bfintl.org) was a little less obvious that it would be a natural fit, but has totally filled me with passion and excitement, a strong reminder that “life is more than hundred dollar bills” (though you’d be amazed how many people in a third world country $100 can feed) and incentive to break those “convenient Lexus cages” to really live life to its fullest—remembering its love that makes life worth living for. We’ve been busy with plenty of things too, like last month we organized the loading of a 40 foot truck (ok, we did most of the loading as well, it wasn’t just telling someone else to do all the work!) with food, clothes, and school supplies to send to West Africa. I pray that your life is equally full of passion and joy!
Lots of Love, Jessica