Two Teas

In lieu of a guest post about “gee I’m in South Africa and the atmosphere is CRAZY” ( *ahem* yes, I’m talking to you, E), this post will focus on two beverages no summer should be without: boba tea and sweet tea.

Boba tea - also known as bubble tea

I was first introduced to boba when I went on a Teahouse run with the Chinese Christian Fellowship during Owl Weekend (Rice’s high school recruiting weekend) – and coincidentally became acquainted with one of my best Rice friends. Teahouse is kind of amazing. You grab some friends, get your boba, and snag one of the board games underneath the counter on the way to finding a table in the back room. Or you just talk, or surf the net. In hindsight, it was probably a good thing they closed the Teahouse in downtown Houston, or I probably would have been penniless last summer (the location was only four or five blocks away from where I worked). Boba is most popular in the Asian community, but is certainly not limited to it.

On Advice

Here’s my prompt for this week: What advice would I give a graduating class of high school students, and “do you think there’s any point to giving advice to young people or is experience the only source of knowledge that sticks?”

I only have two points of advice on this, mainly because when one is giving advice, one wants it to be short enough so people will read it, and because one doesn’t want to say something completely ridiculous. Reducing words reduces the chances of that happening. The following assumes that the graduating class is going on to university, as I did. So here goes:

1. Get plugged into a campus fellowship or a local church with a good college group. This is super, super important. When you start college, you will be absolutely bombarded with activities and clubs and other people who want you to join whatever they’re doing, because every organization wants to recruit freshmen. This offers an excellent opportunity to try new things; some of it won’t work out that well (for me, it was field hockey) and some of it will get you hooked (ie. cycling). But your first priority should be finding that fellowship where the members will offer you strong spiritual support in the times of growth, trials, and service that will follow. College is a time of really cementing who you are as an individual; having good friendships and involvement in a Christian community will critically influence your development. It’s really easy to be dragged away from Christ and the church as a first priority; there are classes, friends, parties, sports, other clubs – the list goes on. Get involved in a fellowship and stay there.