Orientated cont...

Wednesday started with the fun lecture on "Paying for Seminary." This was a subject I really don't like to talk about or listen to, but I did get a few helpful facts. Through all the doom and gloom of loans we learned about a few more scholarships available, and heard about a student who basically made a PT job out of looking for scholarships, and completely paid for seminary that way. I don't think I would be able to spend hour after hour looking for and filling out scholarship apps, so I think I will find a real PT job, and fill out the apps for the scholarships I know of. There was one scholarship they told us about that offers $12,000 each year if you are chosen for it, then after all this great info about this wonderful scholarship they told us it was only for Unitarian students... which I think in our seminary is just Laura (as I incorrectly called Lauren in the last post). There is no Chapel on Wednesday (or traditional classes for that matter) because it is a day to rest, and a lot of students have to work in different congregations on this day. Instead we had a community fair with different churches and organizations giving us info and recruiting our services. I spent some time talking to the girls from Young Life and will be meeting with one of them for coffee sometime in the next couple of weeks to discuss me volunteering. We had lunch at the Vice President's house, and a lot of the auxiliary members of the seminary were present, it was very interesting to hear about how they came to their current stations in life. After this we had a presentation on our health insurance (which is great as long as I am in California where Kaiser Permanente is present), since I was already being billed for it (we had to accept the billing agreement before we could register our classes) I went ahead and signed up. We then had a few hours off before a community potluck and talent show at Montague Hall and Montgomery Chapel. There are so many talented musicians here, it kind of made me feel inadequate since my musical talents are nil.

Thursday was another busy day, but with fewer items on the agenda. We first met and had a lecture on critical writing which again made me feel like I was in high school all over again, Ijust kind of spaced that hour and a half out, and was very ready for chapel following it. Chapel on Thursdays is a contemporary praise service, and the praise band is really good for not having a drum set. I talked to a few people, and may practice with them every once in a while to hone my guitar skills, but will not be taking the praise band class. Next came the GTU/UC Berkeley tour. We loaded up into the vans and headed over to the GTU. On the way one van and a personal vehicle lost us, and ended up in a round about each thinking they were following the other... after about 5 or so trips around the round about they continued on their way and eventually met up with us a the former GTU Book store. We got our GTU IDs, had lunch, and a couple of us wen to the UCB library and got our library cards. Following this we all met back up again for a tour of the UC Berkeley campus and trip to the bookstore. I had ordered all of my books online for pickup at the store, so I went in to pick them up. 4 books were on back order which worked out in my favor, because I barely fit the books I picked up in my day pack.

Friday was our first (unofficial) class. We had a Intro to Ministry "retreat" from 8:30-3:30 with a break for chapel (Fridays are Communion) and lunch (Yay Friday's lunch was paid for!). We started off with a prayer by method of "Examine." This involves looking back at a certain period of time (for us it was the week) and writing down all the events that effected us. Next we went through the list and labeled each item as empowering us spiritually, draining us spiritually, or neither/both. After this we were let out to quietly contemplate and pray on these items. We Introduced ourselves again after chapel and told one item of the week that drained us, and one that empowered us. It turns out Julie (from Alaska) and I had similar drains being that we felt out of place geographically, and afterwords we decided we are going to have to find some time to get out of the city and into the wilderness. My empowering item was the sense of community I feel here, I left a close knit church, but as soon as I met my classmates we started creating our own little congregation here, and that will be a huge help. We finished the day with an African video of Jesus life portraying him as an african man in modern times. it was very powerful, and I wish they had a release of it in the US (our professor had a screening copy he and another professor got ahold of). Saturday ended the week on a great note with a 12 mile hike (about 1800 ft elevation gain/drop again) to Stinson beach. It was beautiful, and made me feel a little less out of my element. I did a little body surfing in the ocean, and ended the day with a mountain bike ride on the fire trails (and a couple side tracks as I got lost). What a great week!