Midterms!

So as of today, I am offially halfway through this semester. The time has really flown, but it always seems to when I'm in school.

This last week was crazy, as I had a paper of some sort due in each of my classes. It ended up being the kind of week where I finished everything on the day it was due, which is not my favorite style of working. This week I wrote about God's wrath in Amos, mission in a pluralistic society, the Augsburg Confession, feminist understandings of sin, and I wrote and preached my first sermon for preaching class. All of the assignments went well, although my favorites were definitely the paper about sin and the sermon about a text I really didn't want to preach on. 

It turns out sin is really interesting when you think about it, and a lot of people have given it some thought. My understanding it better makes my confessions every week so much more meaningful, and I am actually able to find grace a lot easier. My sermon was on Acts 15:12-21, which, paraphrased, says Paul and Barnabas told the Jewish Church that God was acting among the Gentiles. The Jewish Church was confused. The Jewish Church decided the Gentiles could be part of the Church without circumcision. I had a hard time finding the grace of God in that text, but it finally came out. I may be able to get the video of the sermon soon, if anyone would like to see it. I thought it went pretty well, if I do say so myself. 

Now that midterms are over, it is time for my fall break. The best part of this is a five day vacation in Oklahoma City, spending some time with Silas. Our anniversary is next weekend, and I'm excited about being with him for it. I'm also excited about not having any schoolwork to do over the five days. 

But first, I have to get through tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon is my Endorsement Interview, which is the next step in the candidacy process. Most of my classmates went through that today, but my turn is tomorrow, when all of my panel can be there. I am quite excited that Cheryl, my candidacy contact, will be flying up to be at the interview in person, and I am looking forward to getting caught up with her. I am not too worried about the interview, and I'm hoping that peace remains. I think the interview will be a good experience, and I'm reasonably certain that I will be approved for endorsement. We'll see tomorrow! 

Tonight I went to the church council meeting at All Saints as part of my MIC this year. It's really great to go to these, as I begin to see how a church runs itself, even if that does mean listening to a half-hour conversation about heating systems. I'm still really enjoying my time here and everything I'm learning through school and through All Saints. I can hardly wait to see what the second half of the semester brings. But first, I'm going on vacation.

Finally on Spring Break

Midterms are done. It feels like the whole campus has sighed deeply after a mad rush to last Thursday. And now we have a week long break!

My midterm week was busy too, and I noticed that all of us seemed to be cracking up just a little bit. Monday evening I was sitting at the library circulation desk doing my Hebrew homework and I just started laughing uncontrollably. The people at the computers nearby (luckily people I know well) began looking at me with concern. I was laughing because I had looked up a word I was translating, and it turned  out to mean "exterminate" in English. This should not be funny, but anybody who watches Doctor Who might get it. That is the common call of a certain villain in the show, robots that look a bit like pepper grinders, and I was suddenly imagining Jewish Daleks. This was Monday and it was already clear that it was time for a break for me. 

I made it through, though, writing a two essay midterm for church history, a one essay and questions midterm for Old Testament, finishing my performances for Music in the Contemporary Church, and generally attempting to keep up with the regular work of all my classes as well. I took Friday and Saturday completely off, and it was glorious. 

Saturday was quite an interesting day too. I finally got my insurance settlement for my poor totaled car, and it was time to go get a new one. I took my friends Sarah and Kaeleigh with me, partly for a need for a ride, and also because they are good company in test driving cars, and tried out a pretty blue Subaru Forester. I decided I liked it, talked with my dad, he talked with the salesguy a bit, and by the end of the morning I wrote the biggest check I have ever written, paying for the car outright. 

It is wonderful to be able to drive myself around again, and I love the car. I'm even going to try to keep this one for longer this time! Luckily we're at least done with snow until next winter. It's especially nice to have a car again, because it is a little easier for me to remain involved in my MIC site this way. I had a meeting with Bonnie on Sunday and yesterday evening I was able to attend a Justice Ministry meeting there. I love to see how this church is working on moving out into its community and helping in whatever ways they can. They are developing a close partnership with First English, an urban church, and it is beautiful to see that partnership growing and solidifying. 

Being on break is lovely, because I am working plenty at a very quiet library, and then spending the rest of my time crocheting. That crocheting is actually homework, however, because I am making a wall hanging of Luther's life and theology for my final in Church History too. I'll add pictures as I complete it, because I think it's pretty darn nifty.

Finally, I have mentioned this on Facebook, but I'm going to say it here too: I am walking in the AIDS walk in Central Ohio this Holy Saturday, with a group from Trinity and Bexley Seminaries, and I am looking for sponsors. All of the money that is raised will go to help those both locally and globally whose lives are affected by AIDS and who cannot afford medicine or treatment. Please consider donating a few dollars to my 5K by going to www.tinyurl.com/KathrynWalks and clicking the Support Kathryn button. It's quite easy and all electronic. 

Thank you,

Kathryn

I Gave Up My Car for Lent

So, I found out this week that Boaz is most definitely totaled, which is a shame. However, my parents and I are dealing with the situation as best as we can, and I have been car shopping already. It is lovely to have friends who will take you car shopping, too, because we were able to have a great time chatting while I test drove three different cars this weekend. I'm pretty sure I found what I want to get, and now we're figuring out exactly how to make that happen. We're basically buying a car from two different states, while I have no reliable transportation of my own, so it's an interesting process, all told.

This week is mid-term week, which means I've kept myself quite busy. I spent all yesterday afternoon writing a midterm on the Reformation, which is a subject I love, but still took a fair bit of time. I wasn't helped by the fact that George just wanted to play, and didn't understand why I would get upset if he was chasing his tail on my papers. I have another midterm due later this week, along with the standard crush of readings, plus some Hebrew translations, but come Friday I will be home free. Next week is spring break, and I am going to read for fun, clean my apartment, and maybe even make a skirt or two. I can hardly wait.

I have had some pretty exciting things happen to me these past few weeks as well. I was asked to be one of the sacristiants for next year, and I accpeted that job. It means I will work with the pastor here in charge of worship and make sure things for worship are running smoothly. I am really excited about the job, because it is something that I will enjoy and be able to learn a lot about.

Also, this week I am applying for a mission developer scholarship through the ELCA. I was nominated for this program by the seminary, and through it, I will focus on learning the skills necessary for mission development while I am here at seminary. It is something that took me by surprise, but which I prayed about and talked with others about for a week and made a decision that it really might be the path God is calling me towards. I am excited about the opportunity and I hope that I will be able to learn a lot about the joy of beginning or revitalizing congregations while I am here. I have been a part of a congregation that has done this, and I think it is a beautiful process to be a part of. I turn in the scholarship application  this week, so we'll see where that takes me.

So clearly I'm keeping busy, which is why I'm so much looking forward to next week. One way I keep my sanity and stay awake is by crocheting in a couple of classes that I was struggling with. Both are great classes, but I do not need to take many notes in them, and sitting still that long will still put me to sleep. So I am going to be crocheting granny squares throughout those classes for the rest of the semester, and we will see what I can make out of them when I am done. It's another adventure in itself.

Now, I am going to see if I can't make Monday a very productive day and catch up from the things I didn't get done this weekend, due to car shopping.

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