One Week To Go Before I Sleep

[Insert obligatory whining, ranting, and self-flagellations about obscene amount of time between posts.]

Well, my first semester as a grad student is drawing to a close, and it looks like I'm going to make it. I was a bit worried a month or so ago: In the week before Thanksgiving, I had three major assignments due over the course of six days (a 7-page paper, a 10-page paper, and a final project). This largely explains the aforementioned lack of posting. And it means I've got some catching up to do in the "news about my life department."

Let's see, where to begin? Ah, I know:

I gave up on the idea of taking the train to school fairly early on in the semester. It was bad enough that I had effectively zero flexibility in scheduling, but it also turned out that I couldn't get as much work done on the train as I had hoped. Between the noise and the frequent stops (it was a journey of 3 legs each way, with 15-30-minute stops between legs), I just couldn't concentrate (certainly not as well as I can in the school library). Since I wasn't getting much work done with the train, I decided that "training's" 6 hours of commuting a day was unacceptable when I could do 2-2.5 by driving. The fact that I can get an extra hour of sleep when I drive is a rather tasty icing on the transportation cake.

The semester itself has gone well. My classes have reinforced in my mind just how much I still don't know, but I've also learned quite a bit...I think. In any case, I'm enjoying it, despite the difficulty and quantity of the workload.

Between being a commuter and being totally absorbed in studying, I'm finding it hard to fit into a social group. I've made some friends, but I don't see much of them outside of class. That's the thing I miss most about college, I think.

I think that pretty well sums up the semester. Some highlights and notable projects:

*My Theology research paper, wherein I examined the hermeneutical principles presented in Augustine's On Christian Teaching (aka On Christian Doctrine)

*A 10-page hermeneutical analysis of Luke 16:1-13, "one of the hardest passages in the Gospels" (according to the prof)

*The final hermeneutics project, which essentially involved repackaging the course material into a format that I could use to teach a group of my choice (young-adult, Sunday school, small-group, etc.). It was kinda fun once I got into it, and (as is usually the case with such projects) it helped reinforce the material for me, as well.

*A 10-page critical paper on an article titled "A Defense of Classical Foundationalism," wherein I took my first stab at doing "real" philosophy; unfortunately, this was the last assignment in the Unholy Homework Triad of Doom (see above), so the work was less than my best. I'm hoping for a solid "B," mostly because this assignment constitutes almost half of the total grade for the course.

*Chapel. Talbot chapels take place every Tuesday morning, and students are expected to attend if they have class in a time slot immediately before or after it (which I do). But I'd go even if I weren't required; here are some reasons why:
1) Every speaker this semester, without exception, has been excellent. Some were Biola/Talbot profs, others were guest speakers, but all were good speakers who presented good messages (i.e. intellectually rigorous, theologically sound, practically applicable, and rhetorically appealing). According to older students, this is par for the course.
2) We sign hymns. Out of hymnals. Accompanied by an organ (a little one, but still). *happy sigh*
3) Services are held in an actual chapel, rather than an auditorium. It's kind of amazing what that does for the atmosphere and attitude of the whole thing.

*The professors have been amazing. Knowledgeable, helpful, caring...everything one could ask for in a teacher, really.

I've signed up for next semester's courses: Theology 2 (Works of God, Angels, Man, & Sin), Metaphysics I, Survey of Matthew-Revelation, and Spiritual Mentoring Group (the follow-up to Personal Foundations of Ministry, which was somewhat like "Cornerstones As It Should Have Been"). I'm looking forward to it, with the possible exception of that last one. It's a 0-unit course, so I'm hoping there won't be much out-of-class work involved; after this semester, I'm hoping to steer clear of 4 classes per semester.

Hopefully I'll come up with something(s) worth posting over the break. But for now, I leave you with one of the biggest groaners I have ever come across, courtesy of my epistemology textbook. Just so you all won't miss me (or my punning) too badly. ;-p

In a discussion of skepticism:
“Elsewhere [Descartes] mentions the possibility of being deceived by an evil demon who causes him to have the sensory experiences he has. The contemporary analogue of this is the possibility of being a mere brain in a vat of liquid—a skeptic tank—connected to a computer that is sending electrical impulses that cause impressions as if there is a world around you.”

*Hides*