I should have titled this, “Seminary Takes a Swing” because I feel like I have been sucker-punched with a whole lot of work. 6 hours of Grad school I have taken before and it felt like a cakewalk compared to this insurmountable amount of reading. Not to mention the papers and the Turabian style formatting requirements. Bleck! But on an up-note, I love my classes. With just 3 classes I am learning so much and it is all stuff that I can apply to my life and work immediately. Example: The Non-Designer’s Design Book by Robin Williams has been infinitely educational for my audio-visual presentations class. Many of the concepts I already knew, but it reinforced those and then gave me a great deal of new ones. Cha-Ching, I thought, when I read about all the different ways to do layouts and graphic placement. Sure, I have been doing this for a living for a while now, but I’ve never read a single book on design. Not a web page or a pamphlet and so when I started to read Robin Williams’ book I was delighted – delighted to find that I was doing things right and delighted to learn something new.
Secondly, I have been taking a spiritual formation class and an Intro to Theology class and they have been kicking my butt, but in a good way. I like being pushed to my limits in an area that I should be able to grasp and comprehend. I am not crunching numbers or learning about supply and demand. I did that already – and I hated it. Now I’m learning about God and how he applies to my life. Awesome.
I’m settling into my groove and I have my home office mostly setup with a printer and office supplies. I have my school books purchases – all 10 of them – and I am excited to build a library of tools, not just a bunch of books that I can’t wait to sell for a fraction of what I paid for them.
If this semester goes well I’ll up the ante and take 9 hours this summer and then 12 in the Fall. Should be good for me. If I can get in that groove then I can take 36 hours next year and finish up this schooling in just 2 years like it is supposed to be done.
In the end, no matter how hard this schooling is, I’m happy to be back in school for what I hope is the last focus of my education. Will I try to return for another degree someday? Maybe. But for now my focus is on Design and creating for the kingdom and so I’m happy to be at Dallas Theological Seminary where I can learn about two things that I love simultaneously.