Finally A Moment to Write

It has been an incredibly busy over the last two weeks. With the change in Princeton's curriculum came a change in the schedule, so I have been taking a three-week intensive course that meets every morning for three hours. We just finished our second week, and our final is this Thursday. We had our midterm on the past Tuesday, so things move frighteningly quick. There's really no chance to take a breather because if you miss a day's reading, you've missed essentially an entire week of reading for the class. And if you miss a day of class, you've essentially missed a week's worth of class. Thus the reason why I have been absent in posting since returning to Princeton.

My mood has perked up quite a bit since my first post upon returning to Princeton. Dropping my thesis project was a very good decision as it has helped me prioritize things a little better as well as allowing me to put my emotional energy toward more important matters. I was considering taking a leave of absence from school for the Spring semester, but I think dropping the thesis has proved to be a better alternative. A quick side note: some people have been confused about my thesis project, so I want to clarify that here. My thesis was always an elective and something I personally wanted to do. It was outside of my credit and class requirements and is not something necessary for me to graduate. So I'm not jeopardizing my graduation by dropping it, part of the reason why it was a much easier decision than it could have been.

I also switched my schedule around a bit for the next semester since my thesis opened up room for me to take some slightly more difficult classes. So I am going to be taking the following classes:

Children's Fantasy Literature & Moral Formation: Emphasis on Writing Classroom Curriculum

Preaching the Sermon (Workshop class)

Ecumenical Theologies of the 20th Century

Worship as Resistance

Children's Ministry Practicum: semester two

Field Education

To explain the first class a little more, the Children's Lit. class has over 100 students in it, so it has been divided up into smaller groups that will emphasize different areas of interest. My area will be using the information we learn to develop four separate curricula for four different classes of varying age groups. For example, I will probably be developing a curriculum for a young adult/college group, a parent's seminar, a high school bible study, and something along the lines of a senior-aged study group. Other emphases were Drama and Literature, Spiritual Writing, and Writing Fantasy Literature. My other classes should be pretty interesting, and I'm pretty excited about my Preaching workshop. I think it will give me a better opportunity to work on my preaching skills.

I also have found a work-study job for the next semester. I will be working at an organization called Home Front (www.homefrontnj.org). It is essentially a specialized homeless shelter, but my specific area of work will be tutoring teenagers who are a part of the program. I'm pretty excited about the opportunity, and it will be a little extra income to help me with school costs.

Finally, I forgot to post about this during break, but during the break, I was interviewed and accepted for the Teaching Ministry program at the seminary. Basically, it is a specialized internship that is limited to only 10 students. We are placed in church's where we help out with the adult education programs at those churches and teach classes. As part of the program, each student is paired with a faculty member who serves as a mentor to the student. There are six seminars that are held to discuss different aspects of teaching, including the process of determining what degrees are necessary to teach in certain institutions, along with discussions on common readings and other things. It's a really exciting opportunity and one that I'm really looking forward to next year.

This week is going to be a little crazy with finishing up my January-term class and taking a final on Thursday, but I will try to update everyone on what's going on with me once the new semester starts. Hopefully that will get everyone up to speed for now.

Flight Information

It's early for me to be thinking about going home for spring and summer, but with the economy the way it is and the unpredictability of the market, I figured I'd take advantage of the fact that Crazy Ernie has taken over almost every company and is giving away his merchandise for ridiculously low prices! So I managed to find some great deals on airline tickets, finding Spring Break tickets for cheap and a ticket home from school for under $120. So here is my more immediately pertinent flight information and I'll post the other flight info at a later date. So here is when I'll be home for Spring Break:

United Airlines

March 6, 2009

Departing: PHL - 6:48 am

Arriving: LAX - 10:00 am

March 14, 2009

Departing: SNA (Orange County) - 6:45 am

Arriving: ORD - 12:55 pm

Connect: ORD - 1:45 pm

Arriving: PHL - 4:40 pm

Update coming soon

I'm going to post an update pretty soon. The January intensive class has been pretty ... intense, so there hasn't been much time to update on goings on. But in the next few days I will give an update on how things are going. Stay tuned.

Back at School

It has been an interesting transition going from Christmas break to school. I have not really enjoyed being back at school very much, mostly because I feel very distant from home. But with classes resuming today, it has been a little easier to keep my mind off of that fact. I am taking Presbyterian History and Theology for my January intensive course, and so far it has been an enjoyable class. The professors are two of my favorites, so it will be a joy to go to class in the morning.

I had to make a difficult decision regarding my thesis. Because of events that happened over break, which I am still dealing with emotionally, I did not feel that I could put in the effort necessary to complete a thesis that I would feel confident presenting to my adviser. I needed to do quite a bit of work on it during December and I was not able to put that work in. So this afternoon, I decided to drop my independent study and no longer work on my thesis. I don't regret putting the work into it that I did, and though I am disappointed that I was unable to finish it, I am also relieved. I have enough stress to carry around for now. My thesis felt more like a self-inflicted wound than an exciting project toward the end of break, and I didn't want that burden anymore. I hope that sometime in the near future I can return to it and complete it for a later date. For now, it needs to be shelved.

I am hoping that the transition back to school will be smoother as classes continue to progress. More updates to come soon.

A Quick Post from JFK

I love JetBlue. This post is courtesy of JetBlue's free wireless internet. JetBlue: Happy Jetting!

Now that I'm done with the advertisement, the trip has been very smooth so far and quite relaxing. I enjoy train travel quite a bit, and even though I had to start this morning's trek at 4:45, it was still quite nice reading on the train on the way up to New York Penn Station. I arrived at Penn station around 6:35 in the morning, then caught the A subway over to Howard Beach, where I then caught the AirTrain to JFK and quickly checked in to JetBlue pretty nicely refurbished terminal. If it wasn't so far away, I'd probably fly out of JFK more often, at least from JetBlue's terminal.

So now I wait about three hours before my flight takes off, barring any setbacks. That will give me some time to listen to John Mayer, hopefully finish Cormac McCarthy's "The Road," and maybe finish a crossword puzzle or two. Maybe I'll sleep somewhere in there also, though I am surprisingly awake and upbeat, which isn't usual for me when it's that early in the morning. So hopefully the trip will continue smoothly, if all goes will I'll be back in CA in about 10 hours. And I will finally be able to enjoy the warm weather, good Mexican food, and wonderful friends and family. Until then, it's back to the postapocalyptic world where we find a man and his son cautiously approaching a camp of refegees... or is it? Stay tuned for partial excitement!

Thanksgiving to Advent

It has been awhile since I last posted; my schedule has been much busier than I was anticipating even though I ended up getting much less done than I was hoping. So when this week came around - which we essentially had completely off because of the Thanksgiving holiday - it was certainly gave me reason to be thankful.

Thanksgiving was very interesting this year. It was the first time I was not at home for the holiday, making me one of the few this year who stayed on campus the entire week. Quite the experience walking around campus when it was almost empty, though I have to say it was very relaxing. For Thanksgiving, I went over to a friend's pastor's house, and it was a good substitute this year. We had a big traditional dinner, and we played the dictionary game. It's basically Balderdash, except we just go through the dictionary and pick out our own words rather than using words provided for us on little cards. It's a lot cheaper too. I think the words are more interesting too when you find them yourself. You can come up with words like Dugong, Tenebrific, and Phragmocone. The best part is my spell-checker thinks they're spelled incorrectly right now. =) I felt at home when I couldn't be at home, and that was a good feeling.

So now we head into the season of Advent, and I get to preach the first sermon of the Advent season at my internship church. I'm preaching on Matthew 1:18-25, which is the birth story that focuses on Joseph. It will be a new challenge, but I have always wanted to preach during Advent, so it will be a fun experience too.

The coming of Advent also means I'll be home soon. This year my break will be unusually long, but I'm not complaining. I'll be coming home on Decemeber 8 and in CA for the rest of December, which will be good. It will be good to be home for awhile and see friends who I haven't seen for 3 months. It has occurred to me that this is the longest I've been away from home for any one period of time. Went by a lot quicker than I was expecting.

The Christmas season brings back good memories, and one is particularly on my mind. My sophomore year of high school, our band director gave us caroling music to play in concert band, since marching band season had ended and we didn't have any concert music that needed to be immediately practiced. A group of my friends decided that it would be fun to get together and play the Christmas music as a small brass quartet. We played at a retirement home, for a private party, and we even got to play in Old Town Pasadena near the Johnny Rockets. It was a lot of fun to play, but it was also fun to bond with friends and really celebrate the season with music. Something about standing playing trombone with a santa hat on in the middle of Old Town really brought the season to life.

I will probably post once more before I head back to CA, and I'll post my flight info again for anyone who missed it the first time. So check back at the end of the week. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Post-Election Woes

Now that the election circus is over, I can go back to worrying about things that will have a more immediate impact on my life.

It has been a crazy couple weeks. Along with the political climate, I have had quite a full plate with my internship responsibilities and classes. Last week was a flurry of sermons, bible lessons, papers and costumes (granted, not school related) that were all due in a five day span. I was studying the difficult story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22, trying to find good news in there (which I think I may have accomplished) but also requiring me to preach the sermon in a format that I'm not completely comfortable or familiar with (narrative). Then it was on to trying to fit the stories of Joshua, Ruth, and Samuel all into a cohesive story with a singular point - and giving that Bible lesson in 10-15 minutes. From there it was on to a paper about my personal struggle with Panic Disorder as a child, and relating that to pastoral ministry (a paper on which I received an A+). And, as you saw in my last post, I spent about an hour getting ready for our hall's annual Halloween party dubbed "Brownoween," since we live in Brown Hall. Finally, I continued developing the curriculum for the children's sermons for my church's Sunday services. This week was talking about the kingdom of God as a culture of freedom. Quite a busy week.

I'm surprised that everything went as well as it did, but that has always seemed to work out for me. Usually everything ends up working out and much better than I am expecting. Now I have to keep that hope alive for the next two week because my next big milestone project is due: my thesis. It is only a first draft, so it is not hugely critical that I have it pristine or perfect; quite the opposite actually. But I am still deep in research, thought, and writing. With only a week and a half left to work on it, I have a very steep climb ahead of me. But I have been working diligently on it, and hopefully I will have a complete draft to turn in when the time comes around.

So I will be running around quite frantically the next couple weeks and sprinting all the way to Christmas break. Our children's ministry program is starting a new Sunday School unit, and I am leading an entire section of it. On top of that, I still have two or three more children's sermons to write and life in general to deal with. No rest for the weary, but in some ways, I wouldn't have it any other way.