School is in

I spent this morning at New Student Orientation meeting all the other seminary newbies, professors, staff members, and other random people who's names I've already forgotten. Amidst all the info they dumped on us, I was most keenly atuned to the libarian who reminded us that these aren't undergraduate courses. I shouldn't be doing the minimum about of research that my paper requires. I'm excited...and terrified by this prospect. That's part of why I came back to school, to be challenged to think deeply about questions and issues. But I rest in the confidence that whatever they'll ask us to do, they'll also prepare us to do.

The last item of the day was an English Bible exam. It doesn't count for anything more than to give them an idea of where we're starting from. We'll take it again before graduation to see how far we've come. I think the idea is basically to humble the prideful and teach you how much you don't really know. I'm hoping I at least broke 50%.

My courses start on Wednesday morning with Introduction to Pastoral & Theological Studies. My professor for this course is a young guy from Scotland who has only been here in the States only 7 months. Moreso than the theology, I think I'm looking forward to his accent. :) Thursday evening I have my Archaeology of the Bible class with a professor who wrote one of the textbooks. Then next Tuesday rounds out my schedule with Gospels in the morning and Systematic Theology 1 (which includes Scripture, Theology Proper, and Anthropology) in the evening.

The new pad is a townhouse with 2 other guys only about 2 miles from campus. I have the one bedroom and bathroom on the first floor while they each have a bedroom and share a bathroom upstairs. The kitchen/dining/living room area is nice and open, though pretty bare at the moment. We still need to raid craig's list for some furniture. I finally met my other roommate, Nate, who's from the Raleigh area, but has been in the entertainment industry in LA for the past 9 years. I'm sure the three of us will get along fine and have many late night theological discussions.