The Next Phase of the Liturgical Year
Never, ever thought that such a thing would govern my time.
In a way, it doesn't; Easter has come and gone, ending the necessities of Lent. Holy Week was super intense for me this year, not least because it coincided with the last week of classes in grad school, somewhat-less-than-affectionately known as Dead Week to me. I found it alarmingly appropriate that the two joined this year, but it made for a very long week; not only did I have the papers and lectures and whatever else of school, I had the singing at the Maundy Thursday service, reading at the Good Friday service, preparing for singing on Easter, fending off my mother's heartsickness that I would not be going "home" for the holiday.
But it happened, and it is finished, and it was glorious and depressing and soul-filling and crushing and everything that Holy Week is, every part of the emotion of living through the death of a Man and rejoicing that it doesn't end there.
My own rejoicing now lies in having finished the semester, and thus the FIRST YEAR OF GRADUATE SCHOOL. I am done with it, and now have two years left in this program, two years of doubt and exhaustion and questions, two years of learning and discovering and growing. The plan is to continue, to finish, but when have plans ever actually occurred as I made them?
My thanks to those of you who found my last post helpful and said so; as I have grown with this journal, this "blog" that is so much more technologically savvy than I am, I have thought of it being so many things. Funny, then, that it is what it was originally--a place for me to say to the wide void of the Internet that school is a crazy thing, a real world unto itself, a woven part of a larger life. I have begun to realize that school is not the center of my life now, and this is new, very new. I finished this term and ran into all kinds of difficulties with wanting to take a German class this summer--it would happen, but then it was canceled, then I asked if it could be offered as an independent study, then I realized I couldn't afford it anyway, now it IS offered as an independent study...ugh. I do need to take the class, but as I've been thinking about it, I realize that I am not in a place where I could do a formal class right now. As much as I need the rigid instruction because I am terrible with languages, I think I'm going to buy the book and attempt to teach myself, because I had the academic shit kicked out of me this year and I cannot continue to pretend that didn't happen. I need to rest from the stress of classes and deadlines and lose myself in just working for a while, continuing to see where I am needed in my church and among my friends, gearing up for teaching in the fall.
I have never turned down the opportunity for school in my life.
And a part of me realizes I'm not turning it down now, that I'm taking the learning out of the classroom and putting it somewhere else, but this, too, is new, and I'm not sure what to do with that yet. I need to rediscover why I love learning and school in the first place, and I very strangely think I can't do that in a classroom, not right now. So I will learn my own way this summer, working and stumbling my way through German and Latin, cursing the mind that can intricately weave the words of English into any sentence structure I choose but that refuses to understand those of other tongues. And I will be unprepared in the fall, as I always am, and it will be bumpy, and most likely kill me--but I am searching for it to be that fun, fun ride, praying that I can re-discover that, and believing that it will be so.
You See the Outside World as Fascinating
You are simply brilliant. You are bright, intelligent, and creative.
You can't describe your feelings easily - even to yourself. Your emotions are a mystery.
You are a truth seeker. You are willing to accept the real truth, no matter how difficult it is.
You are not prone to compromise. You're set in your ways and proudly so.
How Do You View the Outside World?
The First Rule of Blogthings Is: You Don't Talk About Blogthings
In a way, it doesn't; Easter has come and gone, ending the necessities of Lent. Holy Week was super intense for me this year, not least because it coincided with the last week of classes in grad school, somewhat-less-than-affectionately known as Dead Week to me. I found it alarmingly appropriate that the two joined this year, but it made for a very long week; not only did I have the papers and lectures and whatever else of school, I had the singing at the Maundy Thursday service, reading at the Good Friday service, preparing for singing on Easter, fending off my mother's heartsickness that I would not be going "home" for the holiday.
But it happened, and it is finished, and it was glorious and depressing and soul-filling and crushing and everything that Holy Week is, every part of the emotion of living through the death of a Man and rejoicing that it doesn't end there.
My own rejoicing now lies in having finished the semester, and thus the FIRST YEAR OF GRADUATE SCHOOL. I am done with it, and now have two years left in this program, two years of doubt and exhaustion and questions, two years of learning and discovering and growing. The plan is to continue, to finish, but when have plans ever actually occurred as I made them?
My thanks to those of you who found my last post helpful and said so; as I have grown with this journal, this "blog" that is so much more technologically savvy than I am, I have thought of it being so many things. Funny, then, that it is what it was originally--a place for me to say to the wide void of the Internet that school is a crazy thing, a real world unto itself, a woven part of a larger life. I have begun to realize that school is not the center of my life now, and this is new, very new. I finished this term and ran into all kinds of difficulties with wanting to take a German class this summer--it would happen, but then it was canceled, then I asked if it could be offered as an independent study, then I realized I couldn't afford it anyway, now it IS offered as an independent study...ugh. I do need to take the class, but as I've been thinking about it, I realize that I am not in a place where I could do a formal class right now. As much as I need the rigid instruction because I am terrible with languages, I think I'm going to buy the book and attempt to teach myself, because I had the academic shit kicked out of me this year and I cannot continue to pretend that didn't happen. I need to rest from the stress of classes and deadlines and lose myself in just working for a while, continuing to see where I am needed in my church and among my friends, gearing up for teaching in the fall.
I have never turned down the opportunity for school in my life.
And a part of me realizes I'm not turning it down now, that I'm taking the learning out of the classroom and putting it somewhere else, but this, too, is new, and I'm not sure what to do with that yet. I need to rediscover why I love learning and school in the first place, and I very strangely think I can't do that in a classroom, not right now. So I will learn my own way this summer, working and stumbling my way through German and Latin, cursing the mind that can intricately weave the words of English into any sentence structure I choose but that refuses to understand those of other tongues. And I will be unprepared in the fall, as I always am, and it will be bumpy, and most likely kill me--but I am searching for it to be that fun, fun ride, praying that I can re-discover that, and believing that it will be so.
You See the Outside World as Fascinating
You are simply brilliant. You are bright, intelligent, and creative.
You can't describe your feelings easily - even to yourself. Your emotions are a mystery.
You are a truth seeker. You are willing to accept the real truth, no matter how difficult it is.
You are not prone to compromise. You're set in your ways and proudly so.
How Do You View the Outside World?
The First Rule of Blogthings Is: You Don't Talk About Blogthings