a sunday by any other name...

i just came from a baby shower, and i'm exhausted! i really enjoyed honoring my friend melinda, and i really enjoyed meeting her neighbors and a few other friends. all of them are married, and all but one have kids of their own, so yeah, i felt slightly out of place. nothing better to remind me that God's timing is perfect for me! i'm so glad i wasn't one of them!

but it was also a small world... i started talking with one woman who is from oklahoma. then i chatted it up with the host, who graduated from OU. and her husband did, too, though all of them a few years ahead of me. afterwards, when the husband and kids came home, i chatted with him for a minute, and he told me about a prank he played on his sophomore year roommate, who was a meteorology major. yeah, we're geeks. but i enjoyed playing the small world game again.

but yeah... meeting all those new people took it out of me. proof yet again that i'm an introvert.

after church today, i went to dim sum! so delicious! the place we went only had chinese (cantonese, i think?) on the menu, and the servers barely spoke english. aside from 2 other white guys across the room (eating with an asian family), elijah, joe and i were the only white people there. it was great! as elijah said, it's great to be an honorary asian! our friends on either side of us kept asking us what we wanted, or if we wanted the food being offered to us, and elijah and i could not find a way to communicate that even if you told us what something was, we'd never had it before, and therefore would have no idea if we'd like it or not.

let me back up a moment. dim sum is like a moving buffet. servers push around carts with all sorts of dishes, mostly smaller appetizer-like foods that come 4 to a plate. they then stamp a card that's on the table, and we all dig in (well, 4 of us at least). then another cart comes around with maybe 3 different dishes on it, and we pick things from that cart to share. at the end of the meal, the 9 of us had tried maybe 30 dishes, with some repeats. then we hand the card back to them, and they figure out how much our table owes. for this meal, our bill (tip included) came to $11/person. not too shabby for such a yummy meal!

so back to our table... elijah and i had no idea what we were being offered. we did understand "shrimp" or "vegetables", but not the names of the dishes! his philosophy was that he'd try anything once, and minus the green bell peppers, i complied. so worth it! it was a great experience to have, and quite authentic!

so tonight is a study session for a test tomorrow. sara hosted a going away party last night for some friends moving to cambodia, so she is hosting us tonight with her leftovers! i'm pretty excited! but now that means i should read some on my own, so that i have something to offer when we all get together tonight...

off to study i go!

Vision

This quarter is a little hard for me. I am an SIS student who loves to focus on application and practicalities. I definitely need the theoretical, bigger picture as a frame of reference for what I learn and what I'm involved in, but if none of that changes or affects what I'm doing now, or will do in the future, I lose interest.

Welcome to my quarter. Due to the way classes were scheduled this quarter, as well as the fact that I took the majority of my core classes last year, I'm only in theology classes this quarter.

I am taking Old Testament Writings with Jim Butler, who is a very kind and sincere man. He exudes passion for his subjects but in very understated ways that could be easy to miss. I really appreciate this about him! I actually have noticed it in all my theology/Bible professors thus far; each one teaches the classes for years, yet every lecture isn't just a recitation of the old, but teaching like it's the first time. It's easy to see the professors' love for their subjects!

My next class is New Testament 2: Acts-Revelation, with Love Sechrest. Dr. Sechrest is a brilliant woman who has so much to offer every lecture that I think she may be frustrated that she wasn't able to share all that she wanted to. Yet she faithfully ends classes on time, respectful of the students' time.

Finally, I'm taking Jesus and the Kingdom of God with Joel Green. Wow. This is an elective for me, and I'm glad to remember that to get me to class at 8am twice a week (I'm not a morning person and often work until 11pm)! I took this class as an opportunity to wrestle with the idea of the Kingdom of God, and what Jesus meant when he proclaimed it. I'm not interested in simply learning the historic facts and learning what all the historians and theologians have to say. Knowing their perspective is helpful, but not where I want to go with the class. So, I took this class pass/fail (see my previous post on "The Joys of Pass/Fail" for more on this subject!). At any rate, I feel like the class thus far is a little over my head, and hasn't satisfied my itch much at all. I am sure it will get better as we dive more into the texts of the gospels, though.

So with a schedule like that, it's hard to motivate myself to do all the assigned readings. I KNOW that all of this material will be so much more appreciated 3, or 23 years from now, and it's one of the reasons I came to a seminary for a cross-cultural and development education. I need the Biblical foundation for my life, and I want to be a holistic development practitioner who has integrated her faith with her career. But I'm not passionate about any of these subjects, and I don't have any classes this quarter that I absolutely love. Next quarter will be a different story! I haven't had any other quarters like this, it's just the way it has worked out for me.

I know this is just one short season of my time here at Fuller.

Where there is no vision, the people perish.

This is one of those times to remember the vision God has given to me. This is when I need to remember the dreams and passions he has put in my heart. I need to maintain the vision of what is to come to motivate me in the present.

Thankfully, God has blessed me with life-giving opportunities every day. I am finding that I enjoy my job more now, and I am finding good friends in my coworkers. I used to be too busy with projects and papers to hang out outside of work. I am learning to be more intentional about meeting up with friends here who I don't see in my classes anymore, or calling those who don't live nearby. It's good, and I am thankful.

2.5 weeks down, 7.5 weeks to go!

the glass is half full tonight

i'm not quite certain where i'm going with this one, so bear with me.

it's been almost a month since my last post. i just didn't feel like sharing anything.

i had a somewhat strange experience tonight that could be a sign of how bad this quarter could be. it reminded me of how crappy last winter quarter was. then i remembered how spring really wasn't much better, but for entirely different reasons. then summer... ugh. i feel like i barely scraped by in the fall quarter, so i was thinking that last fall was my only good quarter. then i remembered telling a story (today! even!) about a class i had last fall that had me on the phone with my dad before class for 2 weeks straight, just trying to make myself GO to this terrible class.

i'm such a pessimist. i thrive on being critical and creating drama out of just-barely-not-good situations. it really is strange.

so, starting with the fall of 2008, i will remember the good:
fall 2008: came to a great school, had a really neat learning experience in the class i cried repeatedly about, found a great group of friends in a unique church, and took one of the quintessential classes of my program that i LOVED.

winter 2009: took the other quintessential class that changed the way i think; learned that photography can be worship; and met God in ways i didn't think were possible given my circumstances.

spring 2009: didn't die. no wait, ok, i did the best academically this quarter than any other, and learned some good lessons along the way. in the break between winter and spring, i organized a camping trip in which no one died, too, tho i was tempted to leave a dog to die, and one guy on the trip felt like he was dying with kidney stones.

summer 2009: hosted some friends and family, took a couple trips to see friends and family, and learned my academic limits. i also experienced one of those bottoming out experiences in which i KNOW my life can only be in control of a good Father, cos i'm certainly not in control of it! the best part of summer was that it ended.

fall 2009: regained some traction in my academic capabilities, started volunteering, and had a fun Christmas break with my family.

so what will winter 2010 hold? time will only tell.