Welcome Student Picnic (and other events of the past week)

Hello!  I have just a bit to write about but will make it as long-winded as possible.  This past Wednesday was the Illini Grove cookout where the church and students get together in place of church and have a picnic together.  Well, that meant that Stephen (the VP of the young group) and myself were going to be in charge of grilling hamburgers.  Since I had class at 5 (and the picnic started at 530) I was going to help Stephen grill for awhile and then he would finish while I went to class.  However, upon lighting the grill at the house that he lives (for those of you who know about the Salt Shaker/Shaker/Shake, that's where he lives) and sticking a burger on (we opened the boxes and they were all frozen solid, which I didn't realize), the whole interior of the grill proceeded to go up in flames and send nasty dark smoke billowing from it.  Now, the grill is right on the wooden front porch of the house and is practically connected to the house.  So, I was a tad bit worried about the house since the grill didn't want to settle down even after Stephen shut the propane off.  Finally, it settled down (it was burning on a bunch of grease that was all over the grill apparently).  However, we had now lost almost an hour in time.  So, we came to our apartment, I skipped my class, and Stephen grilled, while I thawed the burgers in the microwave since they grilled better thawed.  Needless to say, we showed up at 610 for the 530 picnic with the main course, oops!  The people at the picnic didn't seem to mind too much though luckily. 

Then, on Thursday, we had a very teeny 8 question quiz in our toxicology class.  While going over the answers, some of my classmates got quite upset and argued incessantly with the two professors.  My classmates became quite rude in the process, making it a rather awkward situation for all of us.  This has been one thing that has surprised me in my vet school career thus far.  I was expecting a professional atmosphere with grown up students, however this is not the case.  Some of my classmates have a tendency to complain about everything and sometimes don't seem to know how to respect the professors and keep their traps shut. 

Finally, after a long day of studying yesterday I was able to go to Champaign church and see the new church.  It looks awesome!  Here's a blog of the church's remodel project if you're interested in checking it out:
http://accchampaign.blogspot.com/
It was a good day at church and there were a lot of visitors since the Welcome Student Picnic was today.  We had three visiting ministers too, one from Peoria, one from Princeville, one from Tremont.  After church it was time to get ready for the picnic and then it was time for the picnic.  I had an awesome time at the picnic.  I even got some exercise in (something I don't get a whole lot of while in vet school) playing ultimate frisbee.  To end the post, here is the picture of the students from tonight.  This is most of the students here in Champaign minus maybe 5 or so that weren't at the picnic:

Just to give you an idea of where everybody comes from:
The back row starting on the left is Andrew from Tokyo, Japan, Katie (our YG treasurer) from Tremont IL, Aly from Champaign IL, Michelle from Congerville IL, Tiera from Silverton OR, Michelle (our YG secretary) from Washington IL, Shannon from Forrest IL, Tess from Fairbury IL and then me from Rockville CT
The front row starting from the left are Kaleb from Fairbury IL, Ryan from Chicago IL, Caleb from Champaign IL, Justin from Goodfield IL, Micah from Fairbury IL, Drew from Congerville IL, Abe from Fairbury IL, and Stephen (our YG VP) from Princeville IL