Finals and Fun

I am moving swiftly into the end of this semester, and the end of my first year here, and I am keeping pretty busy as I finish up.

Last week was a good week filled with interesting lunches and keeping quite busy. On Monday we had a seminary lunch in which we discussed a book of stories about sexism in the church and talked about how it affects our lives too. It was a really powerful discussion, and it is interesting to consider the sexism that is still evident in the church in various forms as well as in our society as a whole. It also made for an interesting time for me just to watch and listen to everybody, because people encounter a subject like this in so many different ways.

Monday night I spent four hours researching four words in Psalms 121:3-4 for my Hebrew verse project. I loved every minute of it. It really is fascinating to see what a word in another language really means in ours and how idioms from the ancient world compare to ours. That was the prep work for one of my finals, and I also got all the research done for my Church History final last week. There I'll be writing about Quakers, Pentecostalism, and the Second Great Awakening in one paper, and John Bunyan, Reactions to Evolutionism in the church, and Vatican II in another. There are so many interesting subjects in my Church History class, so I am looking forward to writing about all of these, and I imagine I won't find it difficult.

My other two finals this semester are tests, and I took one on Tuesday. After that test, I was basically done with my Introduction to Worship class, which was a great feeling, since now I have one less thing I have to spend a lot of time on. My last test is my Old Testament final, and it won't be available until the last day of classes next week, so I'm studying, but not terribly worried. This week is for finishing up my Hebrew and Church History papers, and therefore being almost completely done with the semester.

My other insetting lunches this week included lunch with friends twice - once with Paul and once with Mary Ann. It's great to get to spend time with my friends outside of classes, where we see each other all the time but then never have a chance to chat. Then on Wednesday, my I-group did a lunch/creek clean-up for our service project for the semester. Alum Creek is just next to the seminary, and like many creeks in cities can experience a lot of litter. We had fantastic pizza out there and then went around cleaning up what we could find. We found quite a bit of trash, but the most interesting things were a very worn tent, and a Kroger shopping cart half buried in the creek. It was pretty gross when we got it out, but we rolled it back to Kroger across the street to dump or clean up as they wished. I felt a little gross as I went directly to my next class, but nobody said I smelled too bad!

It's been a good week, and I am definitely feeling the end of the semester coming up soon. I've had a meeting about the commencement worship, since I am one of two sacristans for that worship, and I am learning how to bake gluten free bread for communion. I had a fantastic counseling appointment last Friday, and with just two left before I leave for the summer, I think I'm going to be in a reasonably good place to go into the rigors of CPE. That will be a learning experience for me in so many ways! I start CPE in three weeks, and I get to see Silas in person for the first time since the beginning of this semester in just four. I'm looking forward to what the summer has in store for me. Except for the heat - I already miss Ohio winter.

This week I also started a really nice little sewing project, but I can't say anything more about it for a  bit - it's a Mother's day gift, and I don't see mom until a week from Thursday. I will add pictures then, though - I am really excited about it!

Now I'm off for one more full week, and finishing all my finals.

Kathryn