1 week, finals, Oceania

Yeah, it's been a week since I posted last. Sorry. I do have this computer here, but for the past 2 days it was down because Vista is a poor OS. Now I'm back up. Hooray! I had to completely wipe everything, most fortunately Tim's friend made him a ghost image of the hard drive so it took all of 20 minutes to do. Annoyingly, I have to set up all my own apps again. Thank God everything is backed up on my external hard drive, otherwise both my computer crashing and this computer crashing both would have been killer events. Tomorrow I'm meeting with some professors from Taylor University, who are doing some exploration work, looking into setting up an exchange program like LU has here. They're heading back on the 9th, and one has agreed to take my laptop with him so that it can get a week or so head start to/at the repair facility before I arrive. With luck, I should get it back before the semester starts. That'd be nice.

I just took my final in Marriage and Enrichment, which is going well. Right now I have a 94%, so I'm good for an A there, possibly an A+ if I do really well on the exam. The Korean grading system is slightly different, but I think it's just the letter grade that will transfer to LU. The book we used is pretty good, it's called "The Marriage You've Always Wanted" by Gary Chapman, also known as the guy who made a wheelbarrow-load of money off of his '5 Love Languages' series. I'm not going to bother taking most of my books back with me(heavy in the luggage) but this one's worth it. Not sure what my grades are going to be in my other 3 classes, but not bad. Intercultural Studies is run by the weirdest prof ever and he'll probably grade based on how the assignments turned in taste. I expect a B(would be an A, probably, if my attendance weren't so dismal). Literature should return a B, maybe an A if I'm underestimating myself on the final. Statics is looking like a C, possibly a B if I'm better than I think I am. I still have the finals to go on those last 3 classes, and they might be all on the same day. Eep.

Also, I just got an email from LU advertising a neato mission trip opportunity. It's a boat that sails around the world holding book fairs. They're looking for technical people to repair the boat. First thing mention on the list of desirable skills: welding. Booyah. Second important detail: It's in New Zealand. Man, could you get more of SIGN than that? How many posts ago was it that I was talking about thinking of moving to Australia for a good welding engineering job? Seriously. Not only will this month-long trip be super neat, but it also gives me an excuse opportunity to visit Jake and my new family down under! It worked with my schedule because it's in the summer( 4 July - 4 Aug). The downside: Mega-expensive. As your know, airfare to NZ/Aus is not cheap($2000+), and it'll be on me to raise the support for it. It is a mission trip, so I can raise all the support I can manage, but still- several thousand dollars is not a cheap expedition! I'm thinking that this may be God opening a door, so I'm going to pray about it- he'll provide if he wants me to go.

Oh, and were you wondering why the ship needs repair? From their site:
"Doulos is recognised in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's oldest active ocean-going passenger ship."

Cheers!
-Ned