This week our school had Academic Advising.  This is a couple days in which we get off from classes so that professors can talk to every student one on one to discuss not only what classes they should sign up for the next semester, but also their next few years at Calvin; their future in regards to career; and most importantly their life, what groups they are apart of, how athletics are going, how things on the dating scene are going, what you are struggling with.  I love this time because you get some awesome insights on your life from someone who knows you quite well, as not only do you have this professor for many of your classes, but you also have the same adviser every semester.  By my senior year, my adviser has turned into a close friend and mentor that I can talk to about pretty much anything.  He is always willing to listen to me and is interested and engaged in my life.  I find this is amazing that he can keep up on so many of his advises in this way, but it is cool that he does.

Besides the advising meeting and catching up on homework, students also sometimes take the chance to hangout with friends.  Personally, my free time I used to help out at our Volleyball game and to go out with my mentor for ice cream at Russ's.  Calvin also has a really cool program called the Mentoring Program in which many students who apply get paired with a Calvin affiliated person, usually a professor or a staff member, in which the two make a concerted effort to get to know each other.  This is my third year in the program and my mentor and I have talked about many deep topics in these past few years.  He also has helped me to get through some tough times, helping me to think through my problems and has also introduced me to several cool places in Grand Rapids that I'd never been to before.

The first day of academic advising, the SAAC group led a bunch of student-athletes from Calvin to help out at a local Habitat for Humanity house.  I was a little nervous going into it because I have few hands on skills and Habitat's philosophy is if you don't know how to use it, ask and someone will teach you.  Not knowing how is no excuse.  A large complement of the cross country team joined athletes from all the other sports at Calvin to take shifts over the two days to work at the house.  My first project was to help build a mailbox for the house next door in which homeowners were moving in the next day.  Since the post office needed a place to be able to deliver mail, it had to go up immediately.  It actually was a four-in-one house...it was more like a condo then a house.  So I got to work on that with a few others, in which I learned how to do a few things that I'd never done before. After that, I helped move some siding from one garage to another and organized it.  I had just a few minutes left so I did a little bit of siding before having to leave.  It was cool to be able to help and it was also kind of cool that Habitat for Humanity, as one of the largest builders in the nation, is able to get so much of their work done with the majority of volunteers having little to no experience.

The night before our conference race the men's and women's team was invited over to our JV coach's house for a Pasta dinner.  DVD's of past year's races showed on computers as people enjoyed each others company and food. 

Saturday morning was the MIAA championships.  I was excited to be running at Kalamazoo because that was where the conference championships were held my Freshman year.  It was kind of like my career was coming full circle and I would sort of be able to see how much I had improved (although every day and race is different).  The race went quite well.  We were not expecting taking the top ten again by any means as both Hope and Trine had some quality runners that just had an off-day about a month ago at the MIAA Jamboree.  Hope especially seems to enjoy having their best races at the Conference meet because of our supposed rivalry (I haven't really cared about this rivalry...I have no reason to want to beat them anymore than anyone else.  The Hope guys have been nice to me, I've been nice to them...it's all one happy world in my mind.  At least in Cross Country).  As expected there was a big battle between a couple of Hope's runners, a Trine stud, and our deep pack.  The Trine runner tried to make a break during the race but the Calvin pack and Hope's runners gradually ate away at his lead and they all finished very close to each other.  When I see studs like Trine's that do not seem to really have a teammate with them I kind of wish they had come to Calvin so that he could have someone to run and race with.  I'm like "it'd be really cool for him if he had our pack to run with and I wonder how much faster he would be if he had this support system we have." 
Calvin ended up taking 9 of the top 12 spots overall.  We had 7 runners win All-MIAA first or second team honors (the most any one team is allowed to have in the MIAA in cross country) which was great but I feel sorry for my teammates who would have earned All-MIAA honors had they not been on Calvin's team.  I'm waiting for the day (which probably will never come) in which we have a guy who just barely misses being one of 7 All-MIAA Calvin runners, and then goes on to become an All-American at the National meet. 
I also ended up winning my first MIAA MVP award which was cool although I thought it might be even cooler to say that I am a multi-All-American and the 2007 Great Lakes Regional MVP, but was never the MIAA MVP.  It's kind of too bad that it didn't happen that way, but my teammate didn't listen to me when I told him that he better beat me.

Saturday night one of our cross-country houses held a Halloween party of sorts.  It was cool, with a maze, lots of soda and candy (I am a sugarholic, and yes, even though I am a runner, soda is my favorite beverage and I drink it whenever I get the chance), pumpkin carving and costume contests, dance music, and Mario Kart.  I thank Calvin for their way of promoting safe parties...whenever you hold a party prohibiting alcoholic drinks they will help fund your party with some $.  I think that is awesome and has helped us to throw some great dance parties in the past.  I am not one to want to pay much $ or work too hard on creating a costume, so it takes me some time to figure out something with a bit of quality to be...but I finally did.  I got the idea from a skit that I did for my church in which I played a vagrant (the skit was one about accepting everyone into the church no matter who they were).  I decided to do that again since I had already dressed up like that once before.  I also was pretty sure I could play the part fairly well and enjoyed the comments about being creepy (my other thought was to just call myself a creepy old man, so I dressed up with both in mind).

The next day some of our team went with a couple coaches to see the Big-Ten Championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  It was really cool seeing some great DI runners and cheering for a couple people we knew (like a teammate's sister running for MSU and a former teammate who is now at Purdue for grad. school and still had another year of eligibility).  The toughest thing for me is whenever I watch others racing my sense of competitiveness just explodes and I feel like jumping in the race.  Coach Diemer had run for Michigan back in the day so he was reunioning with many of his former teammates and coaches.  It was cool having Diemer introduce us to so many people and having Michigan Coach Warhurst give us some words of wisdom, as well as have Alan Webb wish us luck on our season.