September

• Experiencing new patterns and environments
• Adjusting to new learning strategies
• Starting to get involved in the House System and meet people
• Getting used to personal responsibility for health and wellness
• Testing newfound freedom

October

• Midterm exams
• Students ask, "Is King’s for me?"
• Developing advanced study habits
• Relationship issues: building new friendships and moving away from old ones
• Roommate challenges

November

• Midterm grades returned
• Many assignments due
• Cold and flu season begins
• Balancing social and academic lives

December

• Exam anxiety
• Fear of failure
• Excitement for semester break
• Holiday gift stress

January

• New term brings new beginnings
• Financial challenges arise
• Grades bring joy or strife

February

• Midterms and assignments pile up
• Health and wellness become important to maintain
• Questioning choice of program or faculty

March

• Summer job search begins in earnest
• Interregnum expectations mount
• Volunteer applications for the following year due

April

• Final Exam stress peaks
• Assessment of first year successes and failures
• Beginning to burnout from the workload
• Financial stresses
• Weather and summer break are distractions

You know your son or daughter, so encourage them how you know best. A word from you means more than you might imagine.

Thanks for your active support.

1. Churchill (Noah Clark, President)
2. Lewis (Dustin Pope, President)
3. Thatcher (Callie Bolstad, President) and Bonhoeffer (Matt Fillingame, President)
4. Elizabeth (Kristen Benz, President)
5. Truth (Susan St. Cyr, President) and Reagan (Manuel Huebschman, President)
6. Barton (Kate Anderson, President)
7. Anthony (Erica Umberger, President)

• Three of our students arranged on outing to hear John Forbes Nash, Jr. lecture on “ideal money.” John Nash is an American mathematician who shared the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work in game theory, differential geometry and partial differential equations. He was also the subject of the movie, A Beautiful Mind.
• The editor in chief of our very own Student Voice, Hope Hodge, is now a contributor in Washington Post and News Week's “Faithbook,” an online blog promoting cross-faith conversation.
• Stephanie Stallo, member The King’s Council student body president’s cabinet is in the process of creating an association of Student Body Presidents for student government leaders across New York City. To our knowledge, there is no such local organization in existence.
• Amy Cutler worked with the Secret Service during the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC and was able to host the from East Africa. She was able to hear President Bush and his wife and meet senators, congressman, presidents of foreign countries and other major world leaders.
• Aaron Craig was recently admitted to an internship with the CNN Operations Association Program. Will Swartz scored an internship with Focused Featured Films, a subsidiary of NBC Universal Studios.
• David Lapp and Anthony Randazzo arranged an informal debate around the concept of predestination which recently made the news in Washington Post.com.
• Miranda Brandt is in the process of arranging a gathering of our brightest students to interact with Dr. Henry Frits Schaefer, one of the world’s leading quantum chemists this March.

• Members of The House of Lewis purchased a copy of Imitation of Christ by Thomas A Kempis and are meeting in small groups every week to discuss the reading.
• The men of The House of Reagan are reading A. W. Tozer’s Pursuit of God in small groups once a week.
• The House of Barton ladies have agreed to fast once a week as a result of reading Richard Foster’s book Celebration of Discipline.
• Members of The House of Thatcher created small “Life Transformation Groups,” each committed to meeting once a week to read scripture, to pray for one another and to hold one another accountable.
• House Chamberlains have agreed to fast once a week.
• The Helmsmen are studying a different book of the Bible every month.
• There is a group of students committed to meeting every day at noon to pray for The King’s College community.

Ginger journal: Wait, I thought this was going to be a 10K. Because I know we DIDN’T sign up for a marathon! One should train for that. Who moved the finish line? Aren’t there some celestial rules limiting the length of time required for a final prognosis?

Stan has a brain tumor and it is located in the part of the brain most crucial to his life’s call and work. That can’t be good. Nevertheless, he has submitted to a radiation/chemo cocktail for most of the summer and he’s doing the maintenance single malt now. His recovery has been fantastic, and he has even been speaking successfully to potential students and parents and at our headmasters gathering. But now he has to have surgery to remove an adrenal gland!!!? Seems excessive. Was ready to move on. Thought this wasn’t a problem. Maybe we should get a second opinion…

On November 26, Stan will have yet another fine taker of the Hippocratic oath—Dr. Pachter—do some window-shopping in his abdomen. To give you a little background, after Stan finished his summer treatments, two follow up PET scans still showed “activity” in his adrenal gland. They did a biopsy two weeks ago and were unable to determine whether it was malignant. Now they will remove his right adrenal gland for a definitive diagnosis. Unfortunately, once they remove it and put it in a baggie, they can’t put it back in. As providence has it, we all have two adrenal glands, and it is okay to lose one. (No, he won’t start talking like a girl…of course, we asked!)

Result: There is a God. And I’m not him. I DON’T understand it, but you know what…I don’t have to. To experience peace and joy in my life, I just have to remember He is good. He died for me. I think that says it all.

All that means we hope to move up on your prayer list again. None of this is meant to alarm you, because this is all minor by comparison and treatable. There is a 50-50 chance it could be cancerous, which would mean further treatments targeting that location—in addition to the ongoing 5 days of chemo a month concluding in February for the remaining brain tumor. Those have been halted until we deal with the adrenal gland, which is not ideal—but no complaints.

I have been camping out on the passage in scripture where we are instructed by our wise God to build our house on a rock. The foolish man builds his house on sand. The house on the rock takes more time and effort, but, when the storms come, the house stands. A really fantastic looking house on the sand may stand for a while, even through a raging storm. But the cumulative effects of many storms, over many years, can ultimately determine what stands and what falls. (We’ve all seen people who appear strong through much of life but then surprise us when their lives come crashing down.) As the story goes, a sailor, when asked whether he was shaken by a menacing storm, answered that, yes, he was—but the rock he was on wasn’t. Jesus is the ROCK we are on.

We will let you know the outcome. Thanks for standing on the rock with us.
Ginger

P.S. I know this is the time I usually add some humor. I guess one could say Stan is on a writer’s strike. Which is actually a good thing. He has his occasional word substitutions, but he’s not really providing us with much comedic material. Thank God for that.

I will say, however, the foolery never ends. During Stan’s recent biopsy, our “tumor buddy” Jim came to sit with me at the hospital. While Stan was in the recovery room, I caught, out of the corner of my eye, a leg leaning in a wheel chair. Somewhat startled, I gasped…and then realized it was a prosthetic. Stan has now concluded that Jim and I are a dangerous twosome, because it was mere minutes before we “borrowed” it and placed it in Stan’s bed to make it look like he had gained a leg. If I could, I would send you the picture from my cell phone. It hasn’t stopped providing me with a trusty source of “mirth on demand.”

• Stephanie Stallo, King’s Council Secretary, forged an alliance with the Political Union at Columbia University creating enormous opportunities for our students to hear world leaders address contemporary issues (e.g. Senator John McCain, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Senator Orrin Hatch, Vice-President Al Gore, etc.).
• Representing The House of Reagan, Lucas Croslow is hosting a gala for the student body. Mr. Croslow invited J. Douglas Holladay, co-founder of Park Avenue Equity Partners, to address the attendees.
• Rachel-lee Carey, President of The Artist Guild, screened the film Miss. HIV Pageant. The film was created to show the clash of worldviews surrounding the Aids epidemic in Africa.
• Becca Tingstrom, in conjunction with the House Scholars, is hosting a House Name Sake night. The purpose of this fun event is to educate students on the nine leaders that serve as namesake for the Houses (Ronald Reagan, Sojourner Truth, Clara Barton, Susan B. Anthony, Winston Churchill, Dietrich Bonheoffer, Queen Elizabeth, C. S. Lewis, and Margaret Thatcher).
• Shannon Stott gathers students every Sunday at Columbia University to play soccer. And Kate Anderson, President of The Running Club, provides accountability for students that need encouragement with their commitment to run twice a week.

• Write encouraging letters and emails.
• Send food, gifts or small tokens of your support.
• Ask if they have money for food, metro cards, and other necessities.
• Encourage your son or daughter to avoid over committing to extra-curricular activities.