School Update

Awhile back I posted about my struggles with Greek, and all the work I had to do to stay on track to graduate this June. After much thought and prayer, and upon the recommendation of my advisor, I've decided to drop my Greek classes - as well as a few others - and take a reduced course load this quarter, the better to focus on my recovery & rehabilitation.

Although I was not able to get a refund for the classes I had already signed up for, the registrar worked out an acceptable solution - I'll take an "incomplete" for the courses I had to withdraw from during the Winter and Spring quarters, then will audit them again when they come around next year. I'll do the homework then, and the professor will simply enter a change of grade once they grade my assignments. This way, not only do I not have to pay for another course ($1300 per class), but this arrangement also ensures that an "F" grade does not show up on my transcript - which would've been the case if I'd simply dropped the courses.

What this means in practical terms is that my graduation timeline has been pushed back - instead of graduating this June and finishing my remaining classes in December, I'll now be finishing everything and graduating in June 2010. Naturally, I was a little perturbed at this initially, but I've come to realize that this is the best (and most realistic) course of action. It simply was untenable for me to "make up" ten hours of credit while simultaneously taking another twelve hours of classes this quarter - all while trying to fit in therapy sessions 3x/week.

I feel a great sense of peace in this decision, and know that God has a plan for all of this - I just need to keep in mind that I'm operating according to His timeline, not my own.

It's All Greek to Me

I've recently become aware of one of the most colossal blunders I've made during my time in seminary. Allow me to explain:

As an M.Div. student, I'm required to take either Greek, Hebrew, or a combination of both.

I chose Greek.

I took the first course in the fall of 2006, and did okay - ending up with a C. So far, so good. But then I took a wrong turn; my professor, Mark Strauss, took a sabbatical and his replacement took over the next course with an entirely different teaching method. Soon, I felt myself sinking and decided to simply withdraw from the course rather than risk failing. I thought I'd just pick it up again the next year when Mark was back and go from there - after all, how much difference could one year make?

Unexpectedly, I was faced with a dilemma when the next year rolled around: a new course called "The Ethics of War" was being offered, but it conflicted with the Greek class I had intended to take. Thinking that the ethics class would be much more valuable to my future career, I opted to take it instead, thus putting Greek off for yet another year. Bad move.

Finally, I resumed my Greek studies in January 2009, more than two years since my last Greek class. I quickly found that I had barely retained anything from my previous class, and began cramming to catch up. However, unlike most other classes, one does not "cram" Greek. It has to be built layer upon successive layer, starting with a firm foundation - which I lacked. To make matters worse, my accident occurred in the middle of all this, causing me to miss several weeks of classes and fall even further behind.

Though my professor was kind enough to grant me an extension to complete the course, this means that I now have to hastily work to build and strengthen my foundation of Greek knowledge while simultaneously enrolling in Intermediate Greek this quarter.

And all of this while I still have make-up work from other courses, 12 hours of new courses (Greek included) to complete, a senior Statement of Faith to finish, and my physical therapy sessions to attend three times a week!

So keep me in your prayers, as it's going to be a long, hard road these next 10 weeks.