It's 12:41 pm on a blindingly sunny day in San Antonio, and I'm sitting in a Starbucks with enough free time to finally update this blog.
Five days ago at this time, I was in the sweltering humidity of Chicago, packing my bags for a 7-week trip down to Texas.
Six days before that, I was finishing my last final exam for the Spring semester, which I finished 4 hours before the midnight deadline (further proof that procrastination just won't stop rewarding me).
Life doesn't slow slow down much, does it? It may change gears a little, but it refuses to be static or stationary. Also, my nomadic tendencies - which I sometimes wondered might be a phase - don't seem to be going anywhere either. I've lived four whole months in Chicago, which was broken up by a trip to Newark for my best friend's wedding in March, and I was already itching to go somewhere else by early May.
So here I am in the Republic of Texas until early July. While nannying for my cousin, who's the greatest 8-year old you'll ever meet, I'm taking a couple of online business classes for my Nonprofit Administration degree. This clearly won't be a restful, laid-back break from life by any means, but I do have time to look back at my first semester at Jesus school and business school in Chicago and try to make some sense of it all.
As I've said before, my overall experience at North Park and in Chicago has been great so far. Fantastic people, interesting coursework, incredible city, good university. Looking a little deeper into it all, here are the top 3 things about my life as a Seminary student in Chicago so far:
1). Jesus school students are fun. No, seriously!
Before I came to North Park, I had some huge reservations about the people I'd be encountering at Seminary. I was a little paranoid that every discussion, even at parties (heck, I wasn't even sure they had parties) was going to end in some heavy theological debate, in which case I would've had to make up a lot of excuses to duck out of conversations...
The truth is, most of the students at Seminary are a lot of fun. Something I didn't consider before is that most people going into ministry are super relational and creative. That combination = fun. Also, they all genuinely care about people and do their best to treat them well, so there's less drama and ridiculousness (of the bad sort) than you'd find among other communities of young adults.
This community is far from perfect, but the people here are pretty wonderful and take every chance they can get to hang out and enjoy life...no theological debate required.
2). Chicago's weather rocks. Well, at least since I've been there.
I moved to Chicago in January, expecting to hate and avoid the outdoors for the next two months, as wind chills dipped below zero and snow flew by the windows horizontally.
But that didn't exactly happen. We had a mild winter, followed by an unseasonably warm spring. During my spring break in mid-March, it was sunny and in the high-70s nearly every day. April was a little closer to its average temperature, but May brought us back to feeling like it was early summertime. It was starting to heat up when I left on Monday, and I've heard summer are brutally hot and humid.. but hey, maybe we'll keep getting lucky for a while.
All I know is that the last week before I left, my friends and I played outside on the campus greenspace, went to the beach, and started building our summer tans. I haven't had a reason to complain, so I'll naively believe the weather will continue its brush with perfection into the summer.
3). College is so much better the second time around.
Ok, so this is not undergrad, part 2 (which I'm personally thankful for). My time at Allegheny was great and all, but life in undergrad is not exactly a healthy or sustainable lifestyle. I'm frankly shocked some people I know survived their four years of undergrad. No one sleeps enough, most people gain (and then add onto) their Freshman 15, some destroy their livers, and the undergrad education doesn't usually prepare people to succeed in real life. It prepares you for more school, if anything.
Grad school is different, in such good ways. [One exception: acquiring more school loans is a terrible feeling, especially when you work for a couple years after undergrad and get used to making money.) I know my grad school experience is not the typical one, since I'm in a dual degree program uniting a Seminary and business school, all while living on campus.However, grad school classes challenge students to think critically, apply what they learn, and encourages them to get out of the classroom and learn through experience. It's easy for most people to float through undergrad without ever learning anything beyond theory and nice ideas. Grad school wants you to go out, get your hands a little dirty and make mistakes so you can learn how things really work in the world. Theory finally meets practice, and your head knowledge travels down to your heart, your hands, and your feet.
That's enough reflecting for the day. I hope this gives you a little window into what I'm learning at North Park so far. A lot of what is teaching me, changing me, and challenging me hasn't been in the classroom. School is great, and being a student suits me well, but what I'm really excited about is the life beyond my classes. My studies are giving me the knowledge I'll need, but everything else is shaping how I'll use that knowledge to bring about change on this crazy, spinning planet.
