THE DAY had finally come. But the weight of the moment, the actual occurrence never fell as heavy as you would think. I had been so preoccupied for so long, it was almost as if I was merely going through the motions, getting ready for something that wasn’t quite real. I briefly thought about it as I scrambled to get everything in order the final night before I moved to campus. Wow, tomorrow is IT. But I didn’t feel anything.

I drove myself to orientation in the morning, feeling somewhat guilty for lack of ceremony, and it wasn’t until I was pulling off the exit for Trinity that I realized what was about to happen. I’m going to seminary. And the immediate emotion that followed surprised me: I feel so alone. Weird. I shook it off, and as I got out of my car, I kicked my self-confidence into turbo and boldly approached. And as I began to meet people and become acclimated, proper amounts of excitement took possession.

As I was sitting in chapel on the high of a great worship set and after meeting a great deal of seemingly cool people… I suddenly had the best feeling ever: I am in the right place. If “peace” comes in the form of lots of goose bumps, I was hit up with a truckload of PEACE. And I knew it was God. And that moment I think was better than anything I could anticipate.

Some important details: (btw, I never want to recite where I am from, what program I am in or where I am living ever again. And no, I don’t know what I’m doing with my degree, sheesh! I just got here! And the scariest thing is I have met way too many 4th year MDiv students… so, needless to say, I’ve got time)

1. My apartment, I’ve gotta say, is a pretty sweet setup for campus living (save for the prohibition laws) and definitely a step up from some of the places I’ve lived. Porch with view of grassy areas, low flying planes and sunsets included.
2. I get along well with my two roommates who, thank God, aren’t completely nuts but have both just graduated from college, so I definitely feel like the old, seasoned one in the bunch (they probably think I’M nuts… and, rightfully so…)
3. My school is predominantly male. And I don’t understand why so many elude to this as being a bad thing. I think it quite fantastic.

RE: #3 There was one interesting moment this weekend. I was hanging out with a group of guys I’ve made friends with (all younger, but def fun). We were talking about “having an adventure” at which point on of them pipes up “Sarah, you can come with us, you’re like one of the dudes”.

w o n d e r f u l.

(I embraced it as an inclusion and proceeded to tag along on what turned out to be a less than exciting adventure).

All in all, it was a good weekend. I am in a whole new world, one that is wildly different from where I was in life (but not so different from being in college in some ways). But I am psyched– totally psyched– to be here. I have no idea what the next 3 (quite possibly 4) years have in store, but I am pretty sure there’s a darn good reason why I’ll be spending them here.

So, this summer I tried to learn Greek. (Stop laughing).  I brought my Greek textbook to the beach and flipped though flashcards in the doctor’s office. I sacrificed many an evening in an attempt to pass the proficiency exam and jump right into Greek exegesis. Well… given that it was summer and I had to move and say goodbye to friends, I got as far as I could. Which was nouns. Yeah… when I hit verbs, I quit. BUT I had determination! I studied what I knew really hard, and with much trepidation, set out to take the Greek proficiency exam at Trinity. At 8 am (that’s 45 minutes from my parents house). I waltzed in, thinking at least I could ace the vocab and the parts with the nouns.

As we stood waiting to enter the testing room, I began talking to the woman I was standing next to. She was elderly and quite entertaining. After awhile I began to look around… there were a lot of guys… and by a lot I mean no.other.girls. I whispered my discovery to my fellow female friend “I think we’re the only two women here!” and she chuckled, “Get used to it, honey!”

Enter female number 3: the proctor. She gives instructions, commences the test and pops open her laptop. Midway through the exam, the chorus of “girls just wanna have fun” begins blaring from said laptop, which she couldn’t figure out how to silence for the life of her. The irony of the whole situation just killed me.

SO… the test is like the the male/female ratio, and men=verbs. There was no section for just nouns or vocab or anything I actually knew. Oh no. ALL VERBS. So, I answered the few questions I could and since that was about one third of them, I was the first person done. Lovely. All these males would think that the one girl in the crowd was smart. Or, even worse, they would be on to me and figure out that I was, in fact, NOT. I bravely brought up my test and brushed the dust of the matter off my feet as I left.

Let’s just say… I’m in Beginning Greek this semester…

If you want to get an idea of my story, you can read any of the links below (some connect to each other).

About Me

The official life-change annoucement

My desire to go to seminary