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Hi Mike, I spent six and a half years getting my undergraduate degree. Unlike most of my fellow students who were taking the long road through college, I enjoyed my classes and did really well in almost all of them. I just couldn't make up my mind what I wanted to do. I started as an art major, got frustrated and discouraged and switched to classics, got discouraged and switched to architecture, got discouraged and switched to management information systems. I finally graduated with that degree, which helped only slightly to get me my current job as a technical writer. I actually attribute a childhood passion for writing rulebooks for role-playing games to my employment, but that's neither here nor there. I've spent the last few years at the Village rediscovering myself as a creative being. If you look at my list of interests before the degree I finished, all of them have a lot to do with creativity: art, art history, and architectural design. Information systems? Well, I guess everything is `creative' but it's probably not what most people would call an art. It's all about efficiency and analysis; unless you're a modernist, art is more about expression. Anyhoo, I wound up with a degree that was sorta fun, but very easy to get and very safe. Back in college I didn't have a community that encouraged me to understand myself as I truly am. I look back on my college years and think, if I had understood myself better then, if I had been encouraged to be who God made me to be, I probably would have stuck with art or architecture. Andrea and I went to Texas last fall to spend time with my aunt and uncle there. I never really got to know that side of my family, and found that my aunt (my dad's sister) had a career in information systems. In her retirement, she spends her time dreaming up very cool houses. She's wealthy enough that she gets to build them, too. Her husband calls her a frustrated architect. I suddenly felt such a bond with my aunt and realized I'm not adopted, after all. :-) I don't know if my story applies to you or not, Mike, but I thought I'd share it because I felt a little bit of a connection with your struggle. I believe that what the women have offered you is of God, and I wish they had been there for me when I was contemplating my departure from architecture school, or of art school for that matter. Looking back, I think one of my reasons for choosing IS instead of art is because art or architecture was, for me, very scary. It is very close to my identity. IS is safe, it doesn't require my creativity so much. It doesn't require much of me. Now I find myself struggling because my job really doesn't require much of me, but fortunately I am in a place where I have lots of time away from work to pursue my passions. They're still scary, though, and I don't always take that time to pursue them. I enjoy my life, though, and I see how God has used all my experiences to draw me closer to him. Even my mistakes and my sin. As I stumble along behind him, struggling along the journey, I see that life with him is truly good. Love ya, Mike. It's been exciting to walk along the path with you. Whichever way you go on your journey, he really is there with you. Ryan p.s. My wife and I have been confronted lately about our sin of avoiding being who God has called us to be. I want to confess that I have been demanding of my life and of what I want it to be, and struggling with being depressed when it doesn't look the way I want it to. I have been running from our project to do an addition onto our house, because I am terrified that I will be exposed as a know-nothing, inept, wanna-be designer (all lies - thanks Andrea). I (Andrea), despite some objections, also have something to confess. I have been avoiding artistic expression, specifically preparing my self-portrait pictures (from our art assignment months back)for display at the Muse; look for the pics on the right. I also have not been taking full advantage of the opportunities for dancing; dancing also brings me alive to my passion.

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