Midterm - only 5 1/2 to go!

This is called 'reading week.' It's supposedly the time divinity students catch up on all the reading they were supposed to have done and maybe, just maybe, get started on the next crop. At YDS, it's also convocation week, the week that classes hold reunions and the Beecher Lectures take place and all kinds of special events are planned such as a visit from the Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts-Schori. While I hate to miss all the fun, I do believe the wise course for me was to come home (which I did) and write papers (which I did, although I had already finished one before this week) and study (which is next on the list). I have three exams, two next week, on the same day, Hebrew and Old Testament. The third exam isn't until the following Monday, so that gives me more time to study for that one. Hebrew continues to be a challenge, and I really want to do well on the exam, but I can't just ignore OT, either. Oh, what to do, what to do...

I've actually just completed my paper for patristics. It felt like a bit of a struggle which probably means it's not very good. I'll have Tim read it and I also plan to send it to a writing tutor that they very kindly provide at YDS. As much as I like to write, it's a whole different ballgame when you have to make an argument and back it up, especially since the professor knows all this stuff backwards and forwards and can probably shoot holes in my argument ten ways to Sunday. And what, you ask, was my argument? That no matter what the orders of ministry - bishop, priest and deacon - may have become in later years of the church, they were at least established in outline as ways of managing the fledgling church before end of the 1st century. Yeah, there are a lot of really smart people who would argue against that, including my beloved, but that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

I'm very relieved that the paper is at least drafted before we leave for North Carolina on Wednesday with an overnight in D.C. so that Tim can conduct some business on Thursday morning. At least I'll only have to worry about exams while we're travelling, and I may need to take some time out from the wedding festivities of Kate and Bryan. But it will be so much fun to see the happy couple and Rachel & Yohann and my mom. You didn't expect reading week to be all work, now did you?