Beach Retreat 2017
It's been a pretty great weekend. The weather finally turned nice again after several dreary, wet, cold days at the beginning of the week. AND I got to spend these glorious past two days at Cape May Point, New Jersey with the Newman Center. We stayed at the retreat house across from the convent, which I've passed a dozen times while at CMP with MF, but I'd never gone inside until this weekend. The retreat house was so cute and there were four floors and a whole bunch of bedrooms and each one was decorated differently. Haley and I shared a bedroom on the fourth floor, which got to be rather stiflingly hot during the day, but was rather chilly last night. There was also a very loud thunder storm last night and while I rarely wake up because of storms, I definitely heard the one last night. I didn't sleep super well, so I'm kind of tired but it's a good kind of tired.
The car that I came in was second to last to arrive last night, so when we got there everyone had already been to mass and had dinner. We grabbed some food and picked our rooms and then at 8 P.M. we had a group meeting and after the meeting, we went into a period of silence until breakfast this morning at 8 A.M. I know that sounds awful, but it was actually not that hard at all. Plus, we were allowed to talk in our small group discussions and during night prayer. And for the rest of the time we were sleeping, so it really wasn't that long. And it's nice not feeling pressured to talk to anyone sometimes. That's probably just an introvert thing, though.
My favorite part of the retreat was definitely spending time on the beach last night, just sitting in the sand and talking to God. It was just really cathartic. The beach tends to do that for me. And then my other favorite part was just walking along the beach with Haley for like an hour during free time this afternoon, talking about Haiti and living abroad and malaria and education...which sound like they might be random topics to talk about, but it made sense at the time. Spending such a relaxing 24 hours at the beach during peak good weather makes me so ready to just be done with school and now I have no motivation to do anything. I submitted one final paper today, which means I have three more to submit (and a final Spanish exam) before I'm officially done. Plus one more day of class, but I that's manageable. Just one more week...and then I'm home for four months!! Longest summer break of my life, here I come.
The car that I came in was second to last to arrive last night, so when we got there everyone had already been to mass and had dinner. We grabbed some food and picked our rooms and then at 8 P.M. we had a group meeting and after the meeting, we went into a period of silence until breakfast this morning at 8 A.M. I know that sounds awful, but it was actually not that hard at all. Plus, we were allowed to talk in our small group discussions and during night prayer. And for the rest of the time we were sleeping, so it really wasn't that long. And it's nice not feeling pressured to talk to anyone sometimes. That's probably just an introvert thing, though.
My favorite part of the retreat was definitely spending time on the beach last night, just sitting in the sand and talking to God. It was just really cathartic. The beach tends to do that for me. And then my other favorite part was just walking along the beach with Haley for like an hour during free time this afternoon, talking about Haiti and living abroad and malaria and education...which sound like they might be random topics to talk about, but it made sense at the time. Spending such a relaxing 24 hours at the beach during peak good weather makes me so ready to just be done with school and now I have no motivation to do anything. I submitted one final paper today, which means I have three more to submit (and a final Spanish exam) before I'm officially done. Plus one more day of class, but I that's manageable. Just one more week...and then I'm home for four months!! Longest summer break of my life, here I come.
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| The convent |
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| Lighthouse and convent |
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| Birds! |
Day 1245 Song Recommendation: "Dance With Me" by Eric Andrew Taylor.
Day 1246 Song Recommendation: "And the Boys" by Angus & Julia Stone.
Day 1247 Song Recommendation: "Dancing in the Dark" by Eddie Berman.
Day 1248 Song Recommendation: "Bittersweet" by ARCHIS.
Day 1249 Song Recommendation: "How to Love" (Spanish Version feat. Sofia Reyes) by Cash Cash.
-SE Wagner
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