Half Of One

After hitting ten posts in October, and it being the first time I hit the double digits in the year of o'ten, I was pretty proud of myself. Actually, I had to restrain myself from blogging every single day, because it seemed that I had something to say everyday. And now that November has began, I will give a quick update on my edumacation... and of course, other things.

The first two months of school has passed by incredibly quickly. September rolled and I got left in the dust. October came around, and I kind of caught up until the last week-ish. Having school just four days a week make my weeks feel so much shorter because I really don't do a whole lot on Mondays unless I have a test or something due that week. So, like this week, I don't have anything huge, so I'm not really doing anything. On Tuesdays, my week will start and before I know it, it's Friday.

Last week, I had two midterms, one quiz, and one paper compacted into two days. I devised a freakin' genius plan that would help me be able to do all of that. But it failed. Miserably. One: I barely studied. Two: I forgot I had a geography quiz. Three: I only did my paper to the extend that I was satisfied. Four: I hoped that I'd do well on at least one of the 3 tests, but did well on none. I think I got 69% on my geography quiz, because with these things, you either know it or you don't. So guessing can only take you so far. Thankfully I had 100% on first two geography tests, so the 69% doesn't sting so bad. Thankfully, the entire Theology class thought the midterm was hard. To take from a classmates words, "I thought I studied, but when I looked at the test, I didn't know anything." Thankfully, my Old Testament midterm was more heavily weighted towards the geography side. With the geography side worth half of the test, I'm quite confident I got all of that; for the rest of the exam, I knew probably around half of that too; so, if all went well, I might still have eeked out a 75%.

So in a bit of a chaotic fashion, I had two papers, two midterms, one quiz that needed to be done in the span of three class days. Thankfully there was a weekend after my first paper was due. Anyways, like I've said many times, I am really thankful for anyone that still takes the time to think about me. I might have mentioned it on my blog - if not, it was in my email update - that it's hard for a student like me to get to know a whole lot of people because I live so far away and I'm not from the greater Calgary area. But in October, I've got to get introduced to some more people and I'm glad that I had people I can actually approach to talk to now. I know I'm really slow at this, but I know I'm going to be able to get there, even if it takes all year. November is going to be a ridiculously hectic month. Right now, I'm kind of entering the eye of the storm. I get a really easy week this week, with a short assignment due on Wednesday, but nothing else that really needs to be done. But starting next week, there is quite the possibility that I get destroyed by the amount that I'm going to need to do. I managed to make it through the first wave of things okay, but this second wave is about twice as difficult. I'm kind of intimidated by my theology term paper because of what the requirements are. It's an 8-10 page essay that requires 15 scholarly sources. It's pretty much a really dry paper because it's just all about me demonstrating that I know my stuff. I didn't do great in my first year English papers, but I improved drastically as the year went on, so hopefully the trend continues.

In church, I continue to do Sunday school, lead worship once a week, and do Bible study once a month for the youth group. People, apparently, keep hearing incredible things about me that I don't even know where it came from. I don't know why, but the more I attend this church, the more I don't feel right. I may have just thrown a grenade out by saying that, but I'm being honest. I don't know what it is. Is it an alliance versus baptist thing? Is it because it's a tiny church? Is it because of the people? I'm trying to figure it out. Normally, I love to go to church; I would look for excuses to be at church. Right now, and it's definitely not a good thing, but I'm almost trying to avoid it? I'm not trying to avoid church in general, but the one that I am attending. Again, another grenade may have been tossed, but I'll take my chances. I've been running all sorts of situations through my head, trying to simulate several instances where someone might have been in the same situation that I'm in, so I can find out why I might be feeling this way. I have my opinions, but this is a scenario that played out in my head. It's not directed at a certain church, but it's a thought that I got when I saw something.

It's fifteen minutes before the start of service, and the church parking lot is empty. There are a couple cars parked on the side of the road that belonged to the people who are serving on the day, but nothing more. The pastor pulls in, and the family goes into the church. It's now five minutes passed the service start time, and the pastor is in his office as he takes a peak at the watch and says to himself "let's give it a few more minutes". Finally, towards fifteen minutes passed the start time, the worship leader steps on to the stage and starts his welcoming. There are about five or six people sitting in the congregation, and they're sitting close to the back. As worship progresses, people finally start to pile in and things seem to be rolling again. At that service, there is a new visitor that has just moved into the city and is looking for a new church to settle down with. After service, the visitor stands around and waits for a bit, but no one even approaches to say hi. The visitor finally gets fed up and leaves without being greeted to even once.


What kind of impressions do you get? When you're a visitor, or a new church member, what do you feel about something like that?

I had other things to blog about, but this is long enough. Have a happy Movember! Make it legendary.