New Year and Swampped

Well Ive absolutely buried. Here is my class list

New Testament Greek II
Introduction to the New Testament (TONS of reading, at least one hour a day)
Dogmatics I - Introduction to Orthodox theology (one 10-15 page paper due Mar 8)
Church History II - 800AD to modern day
Byzantine Chant II - learning two of the eight modes of chant
Liturgics - Study of Orthodox worship practices
Total of 17 credits

Im also now on a chant group and an altar group, so two weeks of every four, I have to be at church for those.

Everyone is doing well. Patrick took 3rd place in the Webelos division for the Pinewood Derby. We're trying to get Kendra enrolled in a gymnastics class. Marcus is crawling everywhere and into everything. He is definately a Fink. He likes to grab a book and crawl into the bathroom :-)

I'll stay more up to date.

Brian

Holidays

Well, its been over a month since Ive posted anything. Thanksgiving and Christmas were good and exams went well. I'm still working on two last papers for Religious Education, so that is keeping me out of trouble.

Thanksgiving was nice, with a turkey dinner served at the cafeteria. Unfortunately, the basement flooded a bit while we were at dinner. So that evening we spent cleaning up. I did rig up a way to funnel the water coming through the window well by taping a dustpan to the wall and letting the water funnel through the handle to a pot.

For St. Nicholas day, a group of us went to NYC for a memorial service at the St. Nicholas church which was destroyed on 9/11. It was right next to the twin towers.
Pictures are here: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8IbNnDVqxbsca

Exam week was hectic but I got through all of them intact. I did get one exam back already. Got a 101% on my Old Testament exam.

Christmas went well other than we all had a stomach virus... that was loads of fun :-)

Now, we're just kicking back and relaxing and watching movies in the evenings.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,
Brian

Psych Test

Well... 5 hours taking the psych test for seminarians. I probably wasnt insane going in but 800 true/false questions later... I probably am.

They included:
People want to poison me
I like playing with fire
I have been on the cover of a number of magazines last month
I have to watch my family carefully because they are plotting against me

And I didnt even have to say I saw Jeeezus on the inkblot tests (okay... Klingon battlecruiser on one...)

They're coming to take me away haha

And tomorrow is the Lafayette-Lehigh game!!!

Weekend work

I've got a 10 page paper due for Religious Education a week from tomorrow and I'm behind the 8-ball now. So obviously that will be the focus of this week. Good news on my Church History and Chanting exams... A-minuses in both.

And the Bengals once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Time to look for a new team I think... Guess I could start cheering on the Patriots.

Oh yes, and Marcus is starting to crawl :-)

Last of the midterms

Two more midterms coming up. Patrology (the study of the Church Fathers, typically theologians and authors pre-1000AD) and my second NT Greek exam, tomorrow and Thursday. Then I have a 10 page paper on Christian Education to work on for November 20th. I'm not behind the eight-ball yet but it is rolling my way.

Kids are doing well with school and they have Friday off, so not sure what we're going to do with them for a 3 day weekend where I have to do research and reading.

I'm definately looking forward to Christmas... I need some time to breathe!

Boston Traffic

Well, we went out to one of the malls to get a baby gate and some winter clothing. Boston drivers are COMPLETELY insane... We couldnt figure out what these people were doing. We were trying to leave the mall and got cut off by people trying to get to our spot.

Oh yes, that and I have an NT Greek exam and a patrology exam next week. Study, study, study.

Ahhhh

Long week almost over. Well I got a B on the Old Testament exam. Not sure how I did on the church history exam. Working on Religious Education right now on writing a paper on a chapter in our book. It was scary to find out that in the entire Greek Orthodox church in the US, that there are ONLY just under 22,000 kids in some Orthodox religious education. And of those, only around 2,000 are teenagers. We're losing an entire generation!!!