Appt w/Dr. H.

Had an appt with Dr. H. today. Went well. Dr. H. thought our open book questions sounded a little tricky. Thought I did well and am doing well. :)

When I mentioned I was thinking of finishing/rewriting the 2 I felt worst about, Dr. H. said to think about it like a kind of gambling. If I were going to gamble $20 and wouldn’t miss it but it could mean I don’t have to pay $150 later… it might be worth it. Said that if I only spend a couple hours per question now, even if COM/Bishop don’t ask for/want them, it probably won’t bother me and if I feel it’s better to spend the time now than later - when it might take more of an emotional toll in the beginning/middle of the semester – then might be good to go with that gut instinct and do it now. I told Dr. H. how I felt good about the Contemporary Society/Affluenza question and about the Practical Ministry questions.

I was telling Dr. H. about the Theology question and how after I read the definition for “divine providence” I thought, “Oh! Go to the Catechism!” and went to the Catechism and looked up the Holy Spirit and there it said that God is still at work in the world through the Holy Spirit. Dr. H. wondered how many other people made that link, mentioning my intelligence and ability to make connections and to think in complex ways. I’m not sure. Since we place an emphasis on Scripture, Tradition, and Reason, I tried to bring them all into my answers. Our librarian had said that they want to know that you know the position of the Episcopal Church and aren’t going to embarrass them or misrepresent them, etc. But one of my classmates mentioned the fact that I seemed to use the BCP in all my answers and that they didn’t really use the BCP at all… which I thought was odd. So who knows how many other people thought of going to the Catechism during that question… other might have been sucked into the history and theology of it (like I was) and either ran out of time to go there or didn’t occur to them to go there.

About my couch-potato, pajama-wearing stint the week after Christmas, Dr. H. wasn’t surprised that I was down for a while during the break. Said it had been an emotional semester for me and I don’t really allow myself a lot of down time during the semester, so no wonder I needed that time to recover and get ready for GOEs. Also probably wasn’t allowing myself to completely enjoy the couch-potato downtime due to negative self talk, etc.

We talked about how GOEs are like a rite of passage, how many professions have some sort of testing or exam and when you get through to the other side you start to not think of yourself so much as a student anymore. You seem to be more on the other side post exam, so after it you start to think of yourself more as the profession you’re entering, and less like a student. I don’t know how much that has happened with our class yet since we just took them, but I know I’ve seen it happen with the last 2 year’s classes during their Spring semester as they start looking to the future and looking for job placement, etc.

We talked about strategies for writing to the Bishop to let him know about what’s been going on with me – my growth, my progress, how I’ve been exploring and working on both my strengths and my weaknesses. I need to do that ASAP – like other things I feel bad about putting off, it’s been hard to get myself to work on this even since getting suggestions from Dr. H.

Later Dr. H. said, honestly any employer or Bishop is going to want a smart person who needs to learn to scale back some and learn some time management over someone who they are going to have to work hard with to get to grasp certain concepts. Dr. H. was cracking me up saying some things like, “oh darn… you mean I have this person who tends to put a lot of time and effort into things, wow… how awful.” That sort of thing. Heh!

In terms of “celebrating/relaxing” I told Dr. H. I was planning to go to the movies with R this afternoon. (planning to try and see Memoirs of a Geisha). Also mentioned I’d been to the gym today and yay for endorphins – Dr. H. said yeah, they can help.

I forgot to tell Dr. H. about the Christmas Eve guy in discernment (God seems to often bring people in discernment into my path).

Also forgot to mention how I did my homily in a short amount of time last night and got positive feedback from the folks about the evening prayer service I lead last night too. :) Got them to chant a little even, and one of them was asking me about teaching a class on the different monastic orders. That’s the first time I think I’ve had a parishioner ask/suggest that I teach a class on a particular subject. That was pretty cool. :)