Where Have You Been?

Where have you been? Where have I been? It's been a crazy few weeks, but I'll catch you up quicker than you can say "subterranean wonderland". I think my last transmission was between camp weeks one and two. These two weeks could not have been more different. The first week of engineering camp was blissful compared to the sh*tstorm that was the second week. A severely emotionally disturbed camper, an incident involving serious misconduct, my co-counselor having to leave due to a death in the family. These are just a few things that made my second week of engineering camp a total failure. In fact, I received a phone call from my boss's boss yesterday while guitar shopping. He needed further information on the (aforementioned) incident of serious misconduct among a few of my campers. Really? I even took a week off, away from cell service and internet access and this crap is STILL going on? I won't go into details. Just know that I've taught middle school choir for two years and NOTHING like this has ever come up. I can't wait until it actually is over. Regardless, the following week, I was able to head north to the foothills of the Appalachian mountains for some much needed separation from life. This was MAW: Music and Arts Week. It's one of my favorite weeks of the year. This is a week long camp held at Camp Sumatanga that focuses on Music and Worship Arts. In recent years, I have served as a camp counselor as well as the tenor section leader (we rehearse all week and present a choral concert at the end of the week). It was so good to see my MAW family again. They really are like distant cousins that you are really close with and as soon as you see them again it's like you never left. This year was especially enjoyable because I wasn't wheelchair bound like last year. The biggest surprise came at the Fellowship (The Fellowship of United Methodists in Music and Worship Arts) meeting on Thursday afternoon where I was elected to be Dean of the Youth division in 2011! I know. I laughed at first too, it's ok. The dean is responsible for, well, just about everything. I was entirely content on being a counselor for the forseeable future. However, the current youth dean, as well as the elected youth dean for next year approached me throughout the week and asked if I would consider being dean-elect! My mind immediately flashed to the scene in "Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone" where Professor McGonagall asks Harry to become Gryffindor's seeker in his first year! He is the youngest seeker in 100 years! I will be the youngest youth dean of Music and Arts week in quite some time. It is quite a responsibility, but I received a peace from God about it during rehearsal on Wednesday evening. I'm pumped.
So now I'm in Birmingham at my parents house, taking it easy and reading Harry Potter. Oh, I guess that's another big event in my life right now. I decided to begin the Harry Potter book series. It's so stinkin' awesome. I also picked up the harmonica, or blues harp. Practice makes perfect they say. I know it's been forever since a blog post. I've been busy. Get over it. I'm back now.