Reading Week

...aaaahhhhh. I'm sitting in the kitchen at my friends' house in Olympia; I tried to do this on the couch in the living room, but their neighbor's wireless network didn't reach that far. Just breathing, and catching up with myself. I'm going to work at the co-op a couple times, and study in public places to see who I run into--but I'm being sort of semi-incognito on purpose. Reading Week is designed to give us time to catch up, or work on projects without being interrupted. I brought a heaping box of books with me, and I need to get busy in them.

My friend June and I drove up yesterday, in her car. We left Berkeley about 10:30, after our Greek class, and I got in a little after 11 p.m. (She lives a little bit south of here. We dropped her off, and her husband took me home.) We stopped a lot, but made really good time. The weather was perfect.

Okay Olympians, why isn't it raining? I was running around in sandals barefoot in California, and I could do that here if I'd brought them. Took a walk this afternoon, and it was positively balmy. What's up with that?

Anyway... Got in last night, said hi to my friend who'd waited up for me, and crawled into my bed in the back room. Today, my godmother and I went to Traditions for what turned out to be lunch. I gave her a birthday present (hers is Wednesday), and we talked about everything. She and her friend are working on a calendar; I can't wait to see.

She said it was good to have me home for a little while. I loved hearing that. I love school, and I'm getting to really like California. But Olympia still feels like home, and it still can be. (Susan, when you read this, thank you.)

Getting up before God tomorrow morning, to go to church in Tacoma. It's time to start exploring other parishes in this diocese, when I'm up here. I'm happy in California, but the Northwest is home, and I would love to end up back here. I don't know yet what my ministry will be (or what I will wear when I'm doing it), and I'm feeling really excited to explore every path I can, everywhere I can. (In San Francisco, I really love the people of St. Aidan's, and I wouldn't be surprised if I settled in there after awhile.)

Our suffragan bishop, Nedi Rivera, was in the Bay Area for the week of October 14. Her roots are there, and she was there to give a lecture at the St. Margaret's benefit at school (to fund a chair for the education of women in ministry) and to receive an honorary doctorate. It wasn't all about the seminarians. But she gave us a lot of time, connecting with us each individually and taking us all out to dinner (the diocese paid for it). She looks after us, and cares about who we are. We are blessed to have her.

I got a 99 on my Greek test. I'd have aced it, if I'd gone with my guess on one grammar question. I thought I didn't get the grammar at all, but apparently I do. Now we're up to our necks in verbs. If you look at them as just completely wild, they're fun. (You can have six parts to one little word: prefix, augment, reduplication, stem, what our auspicious instructor Sean calls a "connector", and personal ending. Three of these are clues to figure out what tense it is.)

I'm really, really loving early church history, also. The instructor is dynamic and engaged in what he's doing, and the subject fascinates me. I turned in a paper on Arius and the Nicene Council last week, that I'd gotten a late start on, but ended up happy with. There are so many twists and turns to this whole epic story. I'm still trying to map out a heresy match game, in my head. Other people like the idea. It would be fun for future first-years, and also me, if I did it.

This week, I'm going to do more work with verbs, partly to really understand them and partly for fun. Catch up my reading on everything. Work on a bibliography for Anglican Tradition and Life; I'm doing a research paper on the New Zealand Prayer Book, and the church there. Read enough of what I'm behind in, in my Old Testament class, to figure out how to write an exegetical paper using any type of Biblical criticism I want.

I'll also work six hours at the co-op, possibly more. And try to see people. There's a reason they don't call this "vacation."

More later!