Seminary Rhymes With..... Semi-Scary?

I really need to be making a dent in the 450 or so pages that I need to have read for next week's classes, however - if I don't get this update in, it'll be lost in the land of "was going to" posts.

The saying goes, "I've bitten off more than I can chew" however, I'd like to add "I have a big mouth." Yes, this 14-credit, 4-course (plus) semester reminds me of the Travel Channel's show, Man vs. Food where the host takes on food challenges most folk couldn't imagine (eating 2 gallons of ice cream in 30 minutes, etc.). But I'm eager to learn; eager to understand; eager to gain skills, eager to grow... eager to finish. Hey - no time for lying, right?

In the last 2 weeks of starting classes, being on campus, etc., I've realized a few things:

-- Never would I have been fit to got directly from my undergrad studies to graduate level coursework. It obviously works for some because they are in the same courses I am, however - this will be hard to believe, I know, but - I was such an immature dummy who thought she knew everything that I would have been sinking before I set sail!

-- It is really fun to listen to some of these recent grads in their conversations with one another and their comparrisons to their undergrad work.... in other words, I see the value in the last 5 years of "real life" and how it has equipped me to be a better seminary/graduate student.

-- People who take Graduate Theological Research together, stick together! It's as though we all experienced the same near-death experience together and will be forever bonded!

-- I am going to meet and work with some really great people on a professional as well as a personal level - an opportunity that would not otherwise be available to me on other campus'.

-- God will take care of my needs on daily basis: not monthly; not weekly; but one day at a time. In the last two weeks, it is as if He had literally taken a hold of my face in his hands while looking me straight in the eyes, saying "Anita, do not worry about tomorrow. You are Mine."

I am His. This journey is His. And I will not do it on my own, but by the grace reaching out to me.

P.S. Since I had to be to work at 7:30am on the first day of "real" classes (mine didn't start until 1pm), no one else was awake in the house to take a "First Day of School" picture. So I took it myself. To relieve any confusion, I am not creating the neat colors of the sky - that's the sunrise. Yes, I really look that special every time I get up at 5:30....