Five Firsts

As the RGBP site prepares to migrate to a new home, I thought I would play teh Friday 5 (while trying to set up a "new" desktop in the den).  This week is about firsts...
Your first "place" - whether it was an apartment, dorm room, or home with a new spouse, the first place where you really felt like a grown-up:  Well it wasn't the first place I paid rent at but I think it feels like my first "real" place because it was the first place I went apart from a temporary residence for the school year.  A bachelor apartment just a few blocks from where I was working at the time.  And as it happens, I was going through old pictures last night and found some pictures of it:

Your first time away from home. Construe this any way you want. College? Girl Scout Camp? Study Abroad? As with many of us there are several of these.  I think I will go with my first year in Seminary, 1992-93.  Lived in a dark basement suite and really did not like it.  (In hindsight there was other stuff happening in my psyche that may have been augmented by teh darkness of the basement suite).

Your first job in your field of endeavor (so, not babysitting, unless you are A Professional Babysitter today): How does one define the first job in ministry?  My first charge?  My first internship? My work at Kids Kottage (which would match the apartment answer above)?  All possibles but I am going with my work at Camp Maskepetoon.  My first summer on staff there was 1989.  And arguably without going there I would not be here now.

Your first time hosting. Again, construed broadly, this could be a dinner for the in-laws, your first time to have guests for a holiday meal, etc. During my first year at seminary our class developed a pattern of taking turns hosting class gatherings.  There were 3 of us who lived in basemen suites that had no space for hosting such a gathering.  And so we compromised.  We "borrowed" the home of one classmate and we provided the wine and cheese for the gathering as the official hosts.

Your first love.That can be a person or something else!!  I am going with not my first love but my first crush.  I was in grade 4, her name was Evelyn, we had been classmates since grade 1.  And I thought she was great.