Post Finals Sanity

If such a thing exists… Mostly I am just tired of seeing my cynical blog up when I really don’t feel like that anymore. That and the more and more I look at it was a combination of final’s stress and paper writing. After I got my head screwed back on straight everything was fine. I has been a long, busy, but rewarding weekend.

Friday

This was the last day of paper writing, but I was done by around noon and had the rest of the afternoon to take a nap and then I got to go to my introduction to working commencement on Saturday. I had my first night where I was not worried about anything except getting a good chunk of rest. The guitar was out and I was very very very thankful and I probably could have sung for hours, if not for being exhausted, and having to get up at 5:15...

Saturday

To be at commencement by 6:15, looking shaven and pretty like. In the end I think I got the easy job doing student line up. I saw some of the ushers, they were having ‘fun’ and making sure others were sharing in the ‘fun’ More than anything I learned how not to screw up my on graduation some years ahead of me. By 1:30pm we were done both mentally and physically. I came home had some munchies, got a second shower, and just staggered around my apartment. By about 4 I finally figured out that I could actually enjoy my evening, so I decided to pick up a book I bought at the beginning of summer to read at some point, but never did: Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game.

Now I wasn’t always a seminary student, in fact I have the driver’s license to prove I was a nerd (In the nicest sense of the word). Stopping 30 minutes for dinner, and an hour when two buddies showed up, I went to bed at midnight having read the book cover to cover. I look at my iTunes and I went through 5 Caedmon’s Call Albums, 2 Casting Crowns Albums, and 2 Chris Tomlin Albums, with timestamps to show for my marathon reading. Ender’s Game resonated with me on so many different levels I am still working through some of the relationships and deceptions that are in that book. On some levels it reminds me of seminary, on another the idea of relationships. The book is basically a wartime strategy type of book and the one exchange that stuck out early in the book and then emphasized the point throughout was this:

“Individual human beings are all tools, that the others use to help us all survive”
“That’s a lie.”
“No. It’s just a half-truth. You can worry about the other half after we win this war.”

The more I try to process through this concept, the more and more I see the truth in it. In a sense it frightens me as well when I slowly begin to grasp the full measure of it’s worth. I had been told by many that I needed to read this book, and after doing so, it will be one of the few books that I will read again.

Sunday

I went to morning service at Cornerstone Bible Church in Glendora, where my roommate from college works as the worship pastor and youth director. It was a well-rewarded trip of worship, and fellowship. One of my older high school students from Santa Barbara was in town and we had a good talk before we parted ways, but an afternoon among believers and sharing a meal was a much-needed rest. I left my apartment roughly at 10:30, attended 11am service and got home around quarter to 4, and then promptly took a nap. I was reminded again of the importance of fellowship, and the power that it has to relax me and remind me of why I am paying as much money as I am to get an education that will drive me nuts. This trip was refreshing, renewing, and a reminder.

The rest of the day was relaxing as I got to see some other friends that were now done with finals, I get to watch the US world cup game in the morning, and I have a whole week to recover from this quarter before diving back in to the books. I think I might need it.