Midterms and Clothes

There has been a surprising amount of clothes in my week, as well as midterms.

At the beginning of the week I tried on the new clergy shirts I had bought at the Augsburg warehouse sale. None of them fit well at all. They were too tight around the body and way too loose in the neck. This made me rather annoyed, as I began looking at women's clergy shirts online and realized that the sizing would be difficult for me no matter what. For one thing, apparently makers of women's clericals think that neck size is relative to bust size, so any shirt that will fit me will be too large in the neck. However, after some searching I did buy one shirt which is made out of a different fabric and has a different fit, so we'll see if that works. I think the makers of women's clergy shirts need to take another look at how women are actually shaped and adjust their sizing appropriately.

Of course another, probably more important part of the week this week was midterms. I only had these in New Testament and Church History, but they did take up a rather large part of my week. I had a seven hour shift at the library on Tuesday night and I used that to do my Church History midterm, which was two essay questions. It was actually rather fun to do. Thursday morning was our New Testament midterm, which was a 100 question, objective test. Just as with every other objective test I've taken in recent years, I finished it in fifteen minutes and left. I heard about that from my classmates for awhile after that.

I'm also still working on my job with the contextual education office going over all our internship sites for the past year. It's certainly interesting so far, and now that I've gathered all the data I'm going to be going through and highlighting the interesting bits in the trend reports. This kind of work reminds me why I actually liked my statistics class in college so much.

This weekend was actually rather full. On Friday, most of the junior class had to go to boundary training, which none of us were really looking forward to. It was better than I expected it to be, mainly because it wasn't just an all day event saying not to have sex with your congregants. It actually gave some good advice and made me think about how I will want to conduct myself as a pastor in the future.

Afterward, and as a reward for going though boundary training, Lecia and I went thrift shopping. It was really fun. We tried on tons of clothes, and I found some really great things. I found a couple of pairs of pants (which is good because I was down to one pair that hadn't worn out), a skirt, three shirts, and a blazer, all for around twenty dollars. After that, I had dinner with Lecia and her husband Bill and then went to watch a bad horror movie with my friend Paul. We're watching bad horror to keep in the spirit of upcoming Halloween, and it is pretty hilarious.

Today, I went out for a girls day with Mary Anne and Erica. We went shopping and they got me to try on clothes I normally wouldn't buy. I've been trying to expand my wardrobe a bit, and they certainly helped. We had a great time shopping and all found new clothes we're really excited about. I should be pretty well set for  the rest of the season now. After dealing with poorly fitting clergy shirts earlier this week, finding clothes that fit well and that I look good in really made my week.

This next week is fall break, which will be nice, but I'll be keeping busy too. I'll be working at the library most days, as well as going to the Healthy Congregations National Gathering, which should be really interesting. However, having the week off will be nice, and I can use the time to get recharged for the next half of the semester. I'm still having a hard time believing how long I've been here. I feel like everything is going really well, though, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the semester.

Wishing y'all all the best,
Kathryn

Cheap books and Endings

Hello again. I've just had a very busy week followed by a lot of laying in bed.

This week my exegetical paper was due, and I ended up writing most of it the day before it was due while I was working in the library. However, I think it turned out quite well, and I actually really enjoyed writing it. Shortly after that I got my assignment for my take home essay final for Church History, which is due next Friday, so I'll have something to keep me busy.

I also had my last assignment for Race Ethnicity and Religion, which I was happy about, because that has been an interesting, but difficult class. Tomorrow all I have to do is attend and participate in our last class and it will be done! Next session I will be taking Teaching Adults, and I'm interested to see how it will turn out. So classes are still definitely keeping me busy, but they're good and I'm managing to fit everything in.

I've also been working quite a bit this week. I am still working at the library, of course, and I absolutely love that job. I love being there and seeing everyone come by and I love seeing the books as they come through or as I wander through the stacks and I always seem to find another book I want to take home and read. I am also working in our Contextual Education office on a project to gather data on all of our internship sites for the past ten years. I spend a lot of time going through files, but I actually enjoy seeing the data and learning more about where we send interns.

Finally, this weekend I was working on a high-school retreat that was in. I went grocery shopping and I led a small group for a workshop on vocation. It was interesting to talk with the high school kids about what they were thinking about for the rest of their lives and sharing my own story of finding my call and my vocation.

On top of all of that, this weekend was the Augsburg Fortress warehouse sale, so a couple of friends and I left early in the morning to be at the sale plenty early, and it was quite an experience. I ended up with four clerical shirts, twenty books, and an alb, for an incredibly little amount of money. The books were only a dollar a piece! It makes me happy to have an alb and a clerical collar of my own, because it feels like I'm moving more firmly into my new path.

I also made my last Ministry in Context visit today, and I've written a reflection paper to turn in tomorrow. The process of visiting was really interesting, because it made me begin to realize what was really important to me in a church. I'm very intuitive, so I would leave a church with a gut feeling of whether I liked it or not, but then I would consider where that feeling was coming from and realize why I liked or disliked each church in turn. However, I am really looking forward to being assigned to my site, because it will be nice to have a regular place to go which will hopefully be welcoming here.

Now, despite all of that excitement this week, I actually realized I was getting a cold on Wednesday. I'm usually awful at taking care of myself when I'm sick and I just keep going at the same pace I normally would trying to pretend like I'm not ill. This time I took a entirely different tack. Both Thursday and Friday afternoon, after I finished the things that had to be done for the day at Trinity, I came home and promptly got into bed to rest for the entire afternoon. I ate a lot of soup and drank a lot of fluids and by now with all that rest I am actually feeling really good and ready to go for the next week. I'm proud of myself for taking the time for actually resting and taking care of myself and I think I've proven to myself that I should do this every time I get sick.

That left me a little behind on my schoolwork, but I'm catching up now, and at the same time I'm making yogurt! It should be a good evening.

Wishing for your prayers,
Kathryn