Tyler’s Blog

While sitting and watching the girls Volleyball team win the Regional title for NCCAA Division II, I was having a conversation with a Freshman about PBU. He asked me what my experience has been like at PBU, the changes I have seen the things I have done and it got me thinking about some of the major experiences that I have experienced both in PBU and outside of PBU but with the help of Professors, friends, RA's, InReachers, Deans and even parents of other students.

Some of my experiences have been serious, some hilarious and some... well some I don't know what to think about them. I have had friends graduate, transfer, come in, leave and come back. I have made friends with Professors and Deans that I would consider people that I will always remember.

I can remember my first day at PBU coming for SOAR day as a Freshman. It was my second Freshman orientation of sorts so I wasn't nervous but I was extremely excited to get started. I wanted to learn, I just didn't know how much I would learn.

Coming to PBU I had only read parts of the New Testament, I recently learned that Pastors could get married (I have a Catholic background and was surprised to learn that my friend's Dad was a pastor with a wife and KIDS)! I was basically following God wherever He led. PBU has no Ice Hockey and no Lacrosse, both sports I actively pursued in for the better part of my life. It was rough, giving up two constants in life for something new that you are unsure if you would even like. It was a leap of faith.

Chris was my roommate, Josh and Darrel lived across the hall from me, Brandon (my InReacher lived next to them and he took an active role in shaping my faith at all hours of the night and morning when I would bust into his room after reading something for the first time and being overly excited about it), Brad (was his roommate and went to other colleges first also so we got along pretty well), Jared (who became one of my best friends) and Ryan lived in my suite with Chris and I. Four guys I will never forget even though its been over 4 years since we first met that hot and sunny August afternoon.

Jared and I really met once his girl friend and I found out we went to rival high schools in the same town, even though he wasn't too happy about that we became friends quick as soon as he found out I didn't like curly hair! haha! Funny as it sounds but that broke down the wall between us becoming amazing friends because his girl friend has super curly hair.

I feel so bad for Brandon having me as a student and those guys in our wing. We were the loudest rowdiest wing, not to mention having me come running into his room either angry to the point of yelling or stoked and excited. There was more than one time that I woke him up with a shake to ask for an explanation or to have a debate. He was an amazing InReacher and will for sure be getting many crowns in heaven.

Well where are those people now? Chris graduated and we lost touch, Ryan is married and a missionary and just had a kid! WOW!, Darrel is running a Christian camp in Alaska, Brad is getting a masters now, Brandon is married and doing odd jobs as he is waiting for God to lead him to a church to minister at, Josh is at carpentry school (following in the steps of Jesus I suppose haha), me? I am finishing up school, taking a few grad courses while finishing up my undergrad and heading off to the Army.

God takes all of us in different paths while at PBU and after graduation, I could write a book about all the different people I know, things I have done, places I have been, and experiences I have had. Maybe when I am older I will get a chance to do that, because I know for sure the people I have met and things I have learned and done I will never forget... some things that impact your life you can never forget because they mean that much.

As I scroll up and realize the novel I unleashed and go back through to remove chunks of it so you do not have to read as much, although you are missing out on some hilarious stories haha. I guess that conversation that started all this was one of those conversations that puts you in the state of mind that gets you thinking and remembering...

- Tyler

Posted by Tyler at 5:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have been waiting since 1993 when Joe Carter and the Toronto Blue Jays beat my Phillies due to a mighty swing by Joe Carter which took the series for them. I was sad, though people say ''you can't have that much feelings for sports when you were that young!" well, I did. FINALLY WE DID IT!

Also what is important to note is that we broke the Tampa Bay curse. You see Tampa enjoys knocking Philadelphia teams out of important play off games:
Eagles vs. Buccs in the super bowl
Flyers vs Lightning in Stanley Cup play offs and so on.

It was our turn to stick it to them. Now, once my Eagles take the Super bowl this year and my Flyers (now that they have a 3 game winning streak with a huge 7 - 0 win over Atlanta this week) win the Stanley Cup I will be sufficiently happy and ready to welcome the Rapture.

Last night was simply amazing.

Posted by Tyler at 2:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Right, so remember those flurries I talked about two days ago and how excited I was? Well... it got heavier, just a little bit. Actually, a lot a bit. It was rather excited to see the first snowfall at PBU this year actually be a major snow fall. Well not major being that there was only an inch of snow but major in the sense that usually the first snow is merely flurries for a few minutes. Well, I read somewhere that a picture is worth a thousand words and I have to get back to work on my paper on Eye for an Eye in Leviticus 24.

So with no further adieu...

You can click on the thumbnail to get the full view for two reasons, its awesome and I wanted to show you how good my cell phone from 2006 works at taking pictures. WHO NEEDS AN iPHONE ANYWAYS?

- Tyler

Posted by Tyler at 7:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

First frost

and then a few days later...

FIRST SNOW (flakes)!

And now as I sit in the comfort and warmth of the cafeteria with my roommate and my girl friend I turned to look outside to massive snowflakes falling and its AMAZING! ITS OCTOBER AND ITS SNOWING! What a fantastic day.

Some other important things to note...
Yesterday morning, I signed up for my last classes at PBU. This coming Spring is my last semester and as I sit to reflect on that for a minute I am kinda bummed. PBU was the first school that I looked forwards to returning to after any break, I love being here and I love the other students, the Profs and even the maintenance workers on campus. It will be hard to leave but its time for God to use what He had me learn here and use me elsewhere.

Who knows, maybe one day He will bring me back.

- Tyler

Posted by Tyler at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sometimes I wish I could just use some sort of slang while reading the Bible without feeling heretical. Sometimes I read through the Word on the Street and wonder if they felt heretical translating into street slang. But then I realize how often I use it (once or twice a year) in youth ministry to catch their attention, make a clearer point or to just have fun with a different translation.

So I guess that changes things. I have read a lot of translations while at PBU, my favorite is the New American Standard Bible (NASB or Nayz-bee), but others I have read are: NIV, RSV, ESV, WOTS (word on the street), DJB (Da' Jesus Book - this is awesome it is Hawaiian pigeon which is really the ghetto Ebonics in Hawaii), GNB, NAB, TNIV, and lots lots lots more. The best experience I have had was learning how to translate Greek into English and I started to be able to make the TTITB (Tyler's Translation is the Best - it is a little biased in its name but it serves its purpose haha).

I love learning from the original texts and the professors are really awesome in the Bible classes to always bring you back to the original languages to show you from the cultural and the writers points of views rather than trying to understand from 20th century American culture.

Posted by Tyler at 9:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Now that midterms are all over I can look back and reflect on what helped me get through those exams in my times of need. After much reflection and debate I came to:

Poptarts, soda and granola bars. They are three of the four food groups of a studying college student, the fourth being Ramen noodles of course. Poptarts and Ramen are for when you miss meals, granola bars are what you can sneak into the library while studying and soda keep you awake while reading text after text after text.

Every once in a while you get free for a meal or something fun, but I wanted to share what helped me through my moment of need. I need to post some more pictures, I will get right on that next time I post. Have a great day everyone,

- Tyler

Posted by Tyler at 9:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, as I sit here at breakfast early in the morning I started to think. It was a busy weekend, I was taking photos of the sports and people on Saturday for PBU and then I had to prepare for youth group and all day Sunday I spent in Church! Between being a Sunday School leader to sitting in Service to leading Youth Group it was busy but still tons of fun.

I think the best thing about Sunday was learning a new type of hand shake. You go in like you are going to pound knuckles but right before you make contact you go 'jelly fish!' and make a motion of a jelly fish with your hand opening and closing as you pull it away past your shoulder.

It is a small youth group but if anyone reading this can lift up a prayer for it I would greatly appreciate it. Well, I am going to go study before my 0900 class! Have a great day!

- Tyler

Posted by Tyler at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

YIPEE!!!! It is finally cold and I am super stoked. This is going to be quick because I need to get back to preparing for Sunday with youth group and everything else. But, I thought you should all know. I am HIGHLY excited that it is getting cold, HOOORAY!

Posted by Tyler at 7:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, I am only stopping quickly to give everyone a quick update on what is going on. Why so quick and why no posts in a while? It is midterm weeks! YIPPEEE! For some odd reason I actually enjoy midterms, specially Blue Book which are professor's super secret essay books which are bestowed on students to pour their knowledge into. What makes the Blue books so super secret? Somehow the blue on the outside manifests itself into red ink on the inside which circles, underlines and leaves comments over your black ink.

Blue books are my specialty so there is minimal red ink, usually just to comment on what I said instead of to say that I was wrong. That, or grammar. In case you have not figured out, being fans of my blogs and reading religiously over the course of the last year, I enjoy run on sentences much like the one I am conjuring right now through this thought. I think I picked it up from reading so many of Paul's Epistles, yes they are wonderful and we are to imitate him as he imitates Christ... probably not in the context of his syntax though. I mean he did write in Greek which has no punctuation so we can't hold it against him that his thoughts are grouped in English as run on sentences.

Anyways, I am going to go hang out in the MAC (Where we eat our food) and study for my Leviticus, BLUE BOOK, exam.

And in reference to my Title, 'What a good day...', I was given a take home exam for Wisdom books on the book of Job, and they are cutting the fields today (I LOVE THE SMELL OF FRESH CUT GRASS). I am not sure why that is in caps, but I feel that it is important to stay that way due to my lack of time, although, now I think about it I could have corrected it by the time that I wrote this, another, run on sentence. I don't type like my Mom, one finger poking each letter individually at a time. Instead I type rather well thanks to my Prep school training on blank key boards and forcing us to learn how to type at radical pace without looking down. I still have some trouble with run-on's regardless of how superb my writing is. Wow, okay I have taken a good bit of time here and most of it wasn't even about my day but about syntax instead.

I hope your all enjoying this insane weather we are having because next week, it gets cold, then I get happy because I can go back to wearing hoodies all the time.

- Tyler

Posted by Tyler at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am pretty stoked to say the least. I am working as an interim youth director at a local Church and I am working on my lesson with my girl friend next to me (for grammar support of course haha) and we had a chance to start singing the worship song 'Prince of Peace'. It was a great time of worship in the middle of preparing for the youth group Sunday and God has just been awesome lately.

Fall break is approaching fast, in fact we are over half way through this week and then I get to head home for a few days. It is a nice break in the midst of a busy busy semester that I will get to spend with friends and family. Great timing too because I was starting to get way over loaded and stressed with class work and work and everything. God truly is great.

- Tyler

Posted by Tyler at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Core Creek Park is a part about 5 minutes away from PBU. It is right between PBU and Yardley and is close enough to run, walk, bike or drive to. Let me give you a prelude to how we got there in the first place.
Alyssa, my girlfriend's roommate, and I are in Astronomy class with Dr. Yoder. Tonight we went outside with two of his telescopes and looked at Jupiter and all 4 of its moons and the moon itself. WOW! I have never seen either of those through a telescope and let me tell you, I WAS BLOWN AWAY! So Alyssa and I decided to get her roommate, my girlfriend, and our cameras and drive to core creek to get some clear sky photos.
I currently use a Nikon D300 SLR with 12.2 megapixels, for those of you who don't understand this gibberish, its kinda nice and takes some very fine pictures. Alyssa brought her pretty good camera and Carly brought her tiny pocket camera and support for our picture taking efforts. (Although now she is determined to get a SLR of her own to take photos with).
Here is two shots, the first one of the moon and the second is the best I could do to get Jupiter and its 4 moons, I could only get three. Sorry.

Posted by Tyler at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)