Weekly post

September 3, 2007

Dear friends,

Classes began on Wednesday, and now that I have made note on my calendar of the due dates of all my projects, term papers, and exams, I am reminded (!) that this is, indeed, graduate school. It's going to be rather a busy October. Still, what I'm plunging into is mostly stuff that I want to plunge into. It's nice to have most of the core courses behind me. Old Testament I, this semester, is the tail end of it, and even that is mitigated by knowing that I have a course transfer that exempts me from Old Testament II, since I took a challenging online course on Prophets and Wisdom Writing in the spring of 2005.

It was pleasing to be reminded why the professor teaching the Matthew course is one of my favorites. She is a top-notch New Testament scholar with a gift for setting assignments that invite us into challenges and deeper explorations of the material than we would have found on our own. There are only five of us in the class, and it's a real treat to engage with her in a seminar course. My only previous experience with her has been in a New Testament survey course with 30 other students, which changes the quality of discussion. As does the fact of it having been a survey course, which is necessarily more shallow.

I had my first meeting with my senior project adviser, who had sage advice on page layout and who has advised me to prepare -- as soon as possible -- a package with sample pages and to begin contacting publishing houses. At his suggestion, I am dropping the artwork that I had on my first sample page. Most devotionals don't use them, they often detract from the point, and since most devotionals are 5 X 8 or smaller, there's probably not room. Otherwise, he was very pleased with the sample page I showed him and indicated that while he was there to serve my work, he figured what I needed now was mostly to be left alone to get on with the actual writing. He said that as far as the writing went, it was clear I knew what I was doing.

And that's exactly what I need right now -- affirmation, a small amount of practical advice, and to be left to the writing. I'll touch base with him as needed. Whee!

I'm informally gathering a small group of women students over 30, and we're having a brown-bag session on Monday (yes, we have school -- the children don't) just to touch base and see how the first week went for everyone.

Grace and peace,
Beth