A Real Intern Now

Today seems like it was my first real day of my internship. By that I mean I actually had to do real work. I think I'll go to sleep tonight still thinking "Hi, this is Mark from Eastminster calling on behalf of Nikki Porter and the Judah Project." It was really hard for me at first to make so many phonecalls. First of all, I didn't really know enough about the program to answer anyone's questions, and second of all I just simply hate talking on the phone. They, as in my supervisors, assure me that phone calling is an important part of exploring ministry. As long as I don't have to be good at it, that's fine. I think there was more than one occassion where I didn't know whether a name was a male or female name and fumbled awkwardly to come up with a non-gender specific term.

Now I'm just hanging out at the church until the youth leader meeting. It's kind of nice that I'm such a big deal here. I have my own phone extension, they gave me keys, and I have access to a computer. Plus there's always the rock climbing wall right outside the office. I'm pretty sure that's the trump card against everyone else.

One of the biggest challenges of the Pittsburgh Semester is probably going to be cooking for myself. Don't get me wrong, I love to cook, but the fact that I actually have to plan and make time for meals is really draining. It really makes me appreciate my mother a whole lot more. (She may be reading this.) Plus, I have to live off $240 a month. I caculated that out to about $4.50 a meal since they provide breakfast foods. I started fasting once a week this summer too so it really come out to about $5 a meal in the end. Sure, that's enough for a decent fast food meal, but I can't eat that every day. I did run about five miles the other because I got lost and didn't want to stop and walk in a neighborhood I wasn't familiar with, but I would have to do that every day if I ate that much MikkieD's.

I actually have something to do now, so I'll end here. Peace, Mark