Entries this day: general_assembly_3

general assembly 3

General Assembly

10:03am Saturday 27(?) June 1998

Yesterday I started at a workshop on how to get grants from an private grant giving organization. They give away millions of dollars each year and I nearly snoozed through the workshop (guess who was up late?) but I got their "how to apply" packet at the end and it was all good.

That was after $6.00 (including tax and tip) breakfast of yogurt and granola with Wende. I'll go to the grocery store this morning so I won't have to pay that much tomorrow.

I read Contact and slept through the 3:45 workshop yesterday on sexuality in the bible.

Oh, at the young adult caucus, we barely got anything done as we started late and talked too much (being good UUs), but we still had fun and it was all good.

At 5pm I went to the Young Adult table and chilled while chalices sold themselves and I chatted with Justice, Jen, Matt and Joey.

We decided to go out to eat, so we gathered up the troops and headed to Empire Brewery, by way of High Falls, a local tourist attraction and saw the huge pitch-back water wheel (musta been 60 feet tall) and could still clearly see part of the walls and masonry of the original building. Then we walked out over the pedestrian bridge that offers a lovely view of the falls.

We ate at Empire Brewery and at the table were Jen, Allen, Matt, Wende, Ashley, Sabrina, Jen, Amy and I. I went to the restroom and on the way back saw some guys with yellow and red plastic beanies with chrome propellers on top! I totally had to have 1 so I said HI and asked for one!

Upon arrival back at the table some of the others were all, "where'd you get that?? I have to have one!" As a group we ended up with 3 such beanies.

I ate really thin crust pizza--Wende Matt and I shared 2 between us. I put some of Jen's left over lettuce, cream cheese and guacamole on my last slice to save for later.

Then off to The Bridging Ceremony (nothing to do with the bridge overlooking High Falls) which was really powerful for me when two youth (bridging across from high school to young adult program) approached me to be their mentor person. Ian acquiesced and accepted my beanie in compensation. I was so moved to be so quickly chosen by Susan, who held firmly my hand while she crossed her arms and I stood carefully and felt her energy.

I said, "whenever you're ready" and we soon walked forward hand in hand (without her arms crossed now) and she lit a candle and spoke her name into the microphone and gave a great hug as we separated.

To the back of the room I went with the other young adults where we held hands while singfully chanting our loving support for the other bridging youth. The whole ceremony was beautiful.

The ceremony was too long for a four year old boy, so I soon ended up on the floor as a jungle gym for him. When the ceremony was over, as he was riding around the room on my shoulders, some youth walked up to me, "Hi Jungle Jim!"

I chilled and talked to Anne Marie and said HI to Susan and gave her my address and stuff in case she wanted support from me. She said she's not ready to join the young adult group yet, but she bridged because she's soon traveling to Nepal where there is no YRUU.

Then off to young adult worship I went and we did a silent guided meditation. Silent in that no one spoke, guided in that we were walking hand in hand with eyes closed through the young adult room. Quite an interesting experience, especially to arrive back in the circle in reverse order.

Worship ended and I stayed and talked to Jen and two others for a while and we shared toe flexibilities and silly games and talked and bonded and described our GA days and it was wonderful boding time.

Soon the others left and it was just me and Jen up till 2:45 am and I sleepily lovingly listened to her stories and we found we both love roller coasters and she loves white water rafting for adrenaline (which I would love if given the chance) and I told her my recent skating accident story. We held hands and fell asleep laying sideways facing each other on the floor til 3:30am when we woke up and went up to my room for her to saline her eyes before she drove home.

Actually she drove to the other Jen's house, where she was staying during GA.