Oh, ESI training...

How do I know I'm at ESI training again? The major blessing in my life is that I woke up and felt rested three days in a row now. I am very excited about many of the new teachers we have this year. Brian and Ryan are the only guys in the whole bunch, but they seem to be surviving allright. Ryan is quick to speak his mind and a total geek, and Brian is a deep thinker and has a beard, so I think we'll all get along fine in Karganda.

Hillary, Alana's teamate, is solid as well. Add the alum (Peg, Andrea, Myself, Noah and Jon) to the aforementioned, and you get TEAM KARGANDA. It's big. And we'll have two friends (Jamie and Faye) in Timertau, under an hour away.

Other teams are not coming together so well (Bishkek, Vologda)... but we'll see. It's something I encourage y'all to pray about--don't stop with me and my teamates.

A lot of us played mafia the other night. I was able to win as mafia once, which never hapens because I'm a terrible liar. Good for life, bad for lying games. Although... the townspeople did let me live one round after I admitted I was mafia. No wonder they all died.

I don't know why, but I feel like there's something blocking me from posting anything too personal here... I've had tons to think about over the last two weeks but I haven't been able to verbalize anything well lately. I did lead the men's session on temptation this morning (with all the morocco and CIS dudes) with Russ's help. The boys were remarkably open, which bodes well for their future time abroad. It's always weird talking to guys about and and stuff outside of relationship. I don't really know these guys and I'm supposed to prepare them for temptation overseas? There is no formula I can give them and everything else sounds like contrite know-it-allness. So I just told my story. You know, what happened to me and what lessons I learned along the way.

I finished Harry Potter #4 and Don Miller's "Searching for God Knows What" so I bought a book about a trapper in the Rockies (his journal from 1834) and Richard Foster's "Money, and Power". Also, this was a while ago, but I got four pretty sweet recods while I was in Seattle that have been awesome for me lately. Talib Kweli and Hank Williams have been ok, but Dylan and this Sufjan Stevens guy have been amazing. I've also had Poor Old Lu on the brain for a while now.