Year-end Epiphany

Maybe I've phrased the question I've been asking myself lately wrong.....Maybe instead of asking myself what I want to do with my life, the better question would be to ask what I have the courage to do with my life.......the whole dilemma between an MDiv and a PhD may really just rest on what I have the courage to pursue.

The prospect for both these options are arguably equally bleak. On the one hand, with the PhD, I'd have to find a supervisor, I'd have to think of a project that I even remotely care about, and then even after getting the degree, there's the issue of post-doc and what to do after. On the other hand, with the MDiv, there's the issue of where I'm going to procure the money for that, where to do my vicarage, whether I care enough to stay Lutheran, which church to go to after.......

But it's the MDiv option that I don't know if i have the courage to pursue. Can I bear the disappointment of all those (which includes myself) who think I'll be wasting my potential in academia? Can I bear the ridicule of all those who think I won't be able to do a good job? (It's not like we have a great example to look towards) Can I bear the scorn of all those who think I'm ignoring my duty to provide for my future family and putting my future children at a disadvantage by choosing a path that is not financially stable? Will doing an MDiv be truly worth standing up to all of this?

And yet, doing a PhD seems to be the more logical option. I mean, even if i absolutely detest it, switching to an MDiv afterwards is so much easier than switching from an MDiv to a PhD, especially one in science......and i just have this gut feeling that if I don't do my PhD now, I'll never get around to doing it.....

I suppose I can do both, but I also don't want to die in the process........three terms of excessive work, with the four and final one starting in 3 days, has made me learn the hard way to stay away from insane workloads whenever possible...............

Damage Assessment

So, after a week of actively denying anything wrong with my life, it's finally time to sit down and see what sort of hell three cumulative terms of BCIT have wrecked........

Preliminary Assessment: Beyond Repair

The first thing that I've come to realize was just how tightly I've wound myself. Went back to DT the other day, and asides from the rather amusing comment from Mr. Wang about how I have to get a PhD from Harvard or I risk losing Jennifer to *insert Mr. Wang accent* "another boy", conversations with Ms. Denchfield and Miss Eisner was rather intriguing. I was telling them how I plan to find a co-op placement before term started again but wasn't having much luck, and their common response was not to worry about it and just take a break......if only it was that easy......

The other odd thing is that for some reason, the first part of 21 Guns just wouldn't get out of my head, and yet, oddly enough it's true......I feel like I'm in ruins, and even all the Sunday school answers I have in my head, that I can tell myself over and over again, just doesn't answer anything......it feels like I've lost so much this term.....if you only peel off that thin layer on the surface - the grades, the days in school, the weekends at church - there's nothing left underneath.....hopes and ambitions, love and happiness, meaning and purpose.......it's all been devoured, and the only thing left to do is either to rebuild it, or to layer on more disguises to hide the true emptiness.........the latter seems like the easier option.....

and you would think, at a time like this, church would be the place to turn to......but something seems to have happened, a turn for the worse i would say......maybe it's just me, but fellowship these days just feels like a group project gone horribly wrong......it's like some unending nightmare, where to every person you turn to there is always some church work to talk about.....since everyone is entitled to their opinions, I too will risk eternal damnation and voice mine......maybe, just maybe, in our haste to perform, in our haste to be effective and in our haste to make something of this church, we have forgotten what it means to be a family in Christ, or rather, more accurately, we never knew it or never bothered to show it in the first place, and so now we just find ourselves struggling to keep our balance on our shaky foundation as we try to reach out.........but anyways, i'll shut up now.........church is good, doo dee doo~~~~~~


Final Assessment: Utterly Hopeless

Recommended Course of Action: Resistance is futile. Just dig a hole, brace yourself for term 4, and prepare to be thoroughly screwed over. With any luck you just might crawl out the other end with a missing limb or two, no promises though......