Deadlines

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. 

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1. Last Thursday, my Approval Essay was due. I turned it in Friday at 4. Only the recipient's mail box was full. So I tried to e-mail it to a second person via my cell phone. On Monday, I get a tap on the shoulder after chapel. Wanna turn that in? Oh, I sent it already. Nope, you didn't. Okay, sorry, I'll resend it.

On Tuesday, I find that neither the first, nor the second email got sent from my phone. This increases my hate for my phone. I now have upset the person trying to get this (now very late) paper. I e-mail it from my laptop. Success.

2. I also needed to turn in my project evaluation from internship. I keep forgetting. The recipient keeps asking. I keep forgetting when I am near my computer. I email it from my computer during one of my classes on Wednesday.

3. I was one of the brilliant people who decided to present an exegesis paper in my Gospel of John class on the third week of class (God bless those who went the second week). That's basically a biblical research paper. This was due Tuesday at noon. I sent it in at 11:59. Then my roommate graciously printed the papers and walked them to the professors while I went back to babysitting.

4. For my Monday afternoon class, I neglected to get the reading done (see #3). And I completely forgot that there is a reflection due on our reading at the start of each class. I have yet to email this in.

5. Monday evenings are also the time to turn in another reading reflection, this for a class that meets on Thursday. I never did it. See #3.

6. As I'm remembering about the reading journal for the Thursday class, I remember that I failed to email or print the paper due last Thursday. I just sent in the electronic copy. I'll hook the printer up in a bit and print that tonight. Or perhaps tomorrow...

FML.

Dream State

The world looks so different now. As if internship were a dream I had that I am now waking from, a big sleepy, a big groggy. And yet, I am changed. Not in the sense that you had a dream where something bad happened and awoke and couldn't shake it for the day... but a knowledge that I have changed. Things deep within me have been rewired. I see the world differently from when I was last here.

And here, for those who can't follow my travels (I understand, I barely can), is Chicago. Back at seminary again for a final year of academics. I return to find several faculty and staff gone and new ones arrived. I come back to two different classes of students. I come back to slightly different courtyards, hallways, stairwells, and offices. Small things have shifted that allow me to realize I've been gone a year.

I'm a True Blood fan. This you should know well. On the first episode of this season, the main character, Sookie Stackhouse, comes back home after being in fairy land (yeah, it's bizarre, don't ask) only to discover that she's been gone over a year. Her home looks different, babies have been born, her ex is king, and her brother is now a cop. Sometimes, the only way to know you've been gone is to see the changes in others.

So here, beyond the walls and objects that mark time, my friends have grown into pastor, preachers, ministers, and stronger people of faith. Listening to them speak about the places they were on internship and the people they met and ministered to and with reminds me that I too have my stories. And though that have a dream like sheen to them, my heart assures me I spent a year in Billings, Montana doing ministry.

To quote Talladega Nights, "That just happened!!!"

I'll work on believing it now.