Visiting a church and dealing with (more) car stuff

I visited a church Sunday morning in the area. It was rather large, especially compared to what I'm used to. Coming in I found a spot near other people and took a seat. I enjoyed the contemporary praise music quite a bit. It was very upbeat and engaged the congregation. The sermon was based on Colossians 3. This is about casting off your old self and turning away from sin and living your life as Christ has commanded. The pastor was engaging and was enjoyable to listen to but as he preached he focused on the sins and at no point taught on how we should live or the joyful part of the passage. It was a very interesting take of the passage. I know the sermon was part of a larger series so maybe there is more to come. After the sermon they served communion and baptized a group of people. There seemed to be a very loose order for worship and very little community building within the service.

After the service I spoke with one of the members in the guest reception area. She was very nice and seemed to be interested in who I was as a person and what I was interested in. She told me a bit about the church itself. They have two services each Sunday and average about 1500 people (which seems gigantic to me). They also have a 22-30 year old, young adult group that meets on Sunday mornings that I might check out if I visit again. 

I had mixed feelings going in and had different mixed feelings leaving. I think I'll try a different church this weekend, just to see what else is out there. This church was a bit more conservative than what I am used to and quite large. I may be able to get over both of those things but I would need to find and become more comfortable in it as a community. 

I spent most of Monday trying to fill out some forms for the DMV so that whenever I end up going they would be ready. I also sat at a Starbucks and worked on the beginning of my Algebra curriculum so that I at least had an idea of the material I'd be teaching in the beginning of the year and could get a few lesson plan ideas before I met with my mentor teacher and had time to plan.

Oh cars! Talk about mixed feelings! I've been having a love hate relationship with my car for the past month or so. I got the transmission fixed and finally picked it up a week before I left for Virginia. I spent that week in and out of the dealership again because the check engine light was on. They would make it go off and it would come back on again within 30-100 miles of driving it. Needless to say I was really frustrated. Well I made it to Virginia and it is driving fine but of course the check engine light is on and it needs to pass inspection (both safety and emissions). In order to do that my check engine light can't be on and the error code has to be cleared out of the system completely. Oh doesn't it figure! So after playing phone tag with the dealer in NY and a dealer here in VA, I brought my car in to get the light looked at and inspected. Well of course there was a little bit more wrong with it that needed to be fixed and then on top of that they are trying to get the dealer in NY to cover the cost of the parts that are needed to fix the thing for the check engine light (which won't be in for about a week). I'm so frustrated! I've spent basically the whole day sitting at the dealer. I know I need a car to get from point A to point B and that the state needs to make money somehow by forcing people to get inspections before registering their cars and everything like that, but this is ridiculous! The car seems to be running fine, it would be really nice if I could just go to the DMV, hand my paperwork in and be done with it. 

Tomorrow is my first day of new teacher orientation. Needless to say I'm nervous beyond all understanding. I know I'll be fine and that I should just be super excited. In a lot of ways I am. I get the chance to meet other teachers who might be new to the area as well or at least new to teacher because they also don't have experience. But when it comes down to it, I'm really nervous about what I'm walking into. They haven't given us an agenda for what the day will look like or what to expect and I guess my type A personality is coming out a little bit in my desire to know what is coming. I'm sure it will be a good day and that I'll learn a lot. I'm trying to stay optimistic and not be scared or too introverted. We'll see what happens.