New Blog

Wow I started a new blog because I thought this one was messed up so i guess i will just use the new blog at the following address www.benjamineneilson.blogspot.com

It's been a while

(Top row is the 6A class and 4C class is below. On the left is a picture of the teacher student dance)

I'm not really sure what to talk about because it has been so long since I've written. I will try to catch up really quick.

• Going home for Christmas was great! I had a great time with friends and family. I also bought a new camera I just need to use it more.
• Ples (Prom) season has come and gone but it was a blast. It was great to catch up with students who had graduated the year before and see what is new in their lives and to get to speak to some of my current students outside of the classroom. The theme of the Ples was 007 so they had a really funny skit involving a James Bond character. There were a lot of funny things that happened that night but I will just leave you with one story. Every year there is a student teacher dance at Ples. I knew this going in and was expecting to dance a waltz with one of my students like last year. However when we got to the dance floor they started to play polka music. I had seen people dance polka but i had never really done it myself. So for the next five minutes I tried to avoid knocking people over and tried not to step on my partner. It was great.
• I started to go to a new church in Prague. One thing I like about the church is that every week we pray for a different country around the world. What helps to intensify the experience is that the congregation is made up of people from many different countries.
• Last week I was able to visit some friends in Ostrava. We had a great time hanging out and eating really good food. Most people in the Czech Republic make fun of the city but I think it is actually a pretty cool place.

I'm free . .. FREE FALLING!

We had to dress up like cosmonauts but it was totally worth it. I recommend it to anyone thinking about it.

catching up

Well alot has happened so I'm going to try and catch everybody up. So here we go . .

First off in my last post in September I talked about going on a hike with Ondra, Stephen and a few friends from Prague. We went on about a 10k hike to the town of Slivice where the last battle in WWII was fought! We also passed a giant hey stack and took some time out to jump into it. The other interesting thing that we saw was a giant ant hill. Ondra said that if a person is trown inside the ants will devour everything leaving only a skeleton in 3 days!










Later in the month Stephen, Pavla, and I went with a group of students to the Prague zoo and botanical gardens. I had a lot of fun and I'm even thinking about going back in the spring.
And finally I want to talk about my skydiving adventures of a week ago. The story of how I ended up going sky diving starts a year ago when a student (Lucie) was talking about how she wanted to go skydiving when she turned 18. Stephen agreed right then that if he came back he would go with her. I said maybe. I have always been a little bit afraid of heights but have over the years grown more comfortable with them. I started to like rollercoasters in high school, bungee jumping in college and finally last week skydiving. But back to the story so this year when Lucie turned 18 her parents gave her a certificat to go skydiving and long story short Stephen, Ondra and I decided to go with her. A few days before I jumped I was really nervous but as the time got closer I was suprisingly less and less afraid. One of the things that has really made me feel more comfortable in dangerous situations is my belief in God. I trust in God's plan for my life and his goodness and soverignty. If he decides to take my life who am I to argue? After all he is the one that gave it to me in the first place. So with confidence not in my assured survival but in God's supremacy I was able to jump out of the airplane and have one of the coolest experiences in my life! We jumped over Pribram so I was able to see my town and the mountains behind it. I free fell for 1.5K which took just about a minute. The free fall was amazing! It didn't even really feel like I was falling I'm guessing because of the air pressure. The whole thing was a blast and I highly recommend it to anyone thinking about jumping. I will publish the picture later because for some reason they aren't loading now.

Round 2

Hey all it's been a while since my last post. This year has started out pretty good. I've finished my first month and I'm enjoying seeing my students again. This year some teachers and I started a Bible study in Prague. I can only go twice a month but I'm really enjoying it. In my next post I will talk about a hike I took with a student and some friends from Prague. I'm waiting until I have some new pictures. For fall break I will be going to Paris with three other teachers so that should be fun. I've been reading a lot lately some classic literature (Lord of the Flies, Great Gatsby, 1984), Russian literature (The Gambler), and a few history books (Collapse, 1776). These past two years have reaffirmed my love for reading. I also finished reading "A New Kind of Christian" by Brian McLaren (his last name might not be spelled right) and I would love to talk to people about what they think about this book so if you've read it hit me up. Hopefully I will add a new post soon. I want to leave you one of my favorite quotes:

"It dosen't matter whether it's a dull lie or a dull truth. Dullness, not doubt, is the strongest enemy of faith, just as indifference, not hate, is the strongest enemy of love" -Peter Kreeft

Trying not to be dull,

Ben

Some pictures from our exhausting, slightly dangerous but incredibly fun hike in the San Gabriel Mountains.

Home

My time at home has been really great if a little unproductive at times. I'm staying up much later than I have been this past year and playing a lot of card games and eating a lot of Mexican food. I'm reading about 3 books and I'm not very far in any of them. The most exciting things that I have done since I've been home was to go to a friends wedding and then spend a week out in LA for ESI training. I had a great time at the wedding and was able to see a good friend get married and see a lot of my college friends. The only down part was I started to get a little sick there and now two weeks later I'm still out of it.

In California I had a lot of fun with the new ESI teachers they are pretty cool. The last day I was there we went on an awesome hike in the mountains where we eventually found a waterfall. We spent most of the hike walking up a dray waterbed which was rather treacherous. Praise God no one was hurt because most of us don't have health insurance in America! While at training I was able to hit up a few of my favorite restaurants including Prontos doughnuts! The best doughnuts I've had.

A few days ago I was able to go down to Bloomington to speak at the church I went to in college. I really felt welcomed and encouraged by the people there. I was also able to catch up with a few friends which was good times.