Controlled Chaos

Too Busy is a Real Thing

With a little more than a month remaining in the semester, I thought it would be good to post an update on how things are going.  The best way I can describe how things are at the moment is controlled chaos.  Between changes at work, family needs, church commitments, and school, I've been crazy busy and I'm learning that there is such a thing as being too busy.  There are battles raging for my time and admittedly, I'm not doing as well on these fronts as I could - but you already know this as this is my first post in over a month.  Today I'll share a bit about this and how I plan to get things back on track in my crazy life!

How is School Going?

PM102 (Evangelism) is really a great class.  The lectures are engaging, the teaching is practical and thought-provoking and the assignment work is both challenging and fun.  The pace of the course is excellent and I've actually nearly completed all the lecture and reading assignments.  The last thing for me to really focus on is the final gospel project which accounts for 30% of my final grade.  I'm hoping to share my final project here so you'll get to see what I've been working towards this semester.  While I've refrained from posting my assignments out of respect for the integrity of the courses and learning, this assignment is something that is meant to be shared.  With roughly a month to complete this assignment, I feel like I'm in good shape.  I'll provide a much more thorough review at the end of the course as I have with the other courses I've taken thus far.

PM101 (Spiritual Life) is still a bit of an enigma to me.  It's a bit ironic that I've learned so much thus far in this course which is really meaningful and beneficial for me, but this quite honestly has been one of my least favorite courses I've ever taken at the university level - yes even worse than Feedback Control Systems as an undergrad in Electrical Engineering.  The learning material in PM101 is nothing short of outstanding and extremely useful, but there are two big issues I have at this point; First, this class is structured and organized in a way that is not well suited to distance learning, and second, the time commitment far exceeds the normal workload one would expect from a 2 credit course.  So for me, it's all about the organization and not about the material!

It's also worth noting that the grading for the Spiritual Life is punishingly strict.  Don't misunderstand, this is not a complaint, but rather I'm just pointing out that it is absolutely necessary to invest significant time in the course to hope to maintain an acceptable grade.  If I was going to estimate my final grade in this course right now, I'd say that I'm going to be looking at a B+.  I'm currently sitting at an A, but I've been consistently getting B+s in the more heavily weighted assignments so I think that it is reasonable to expect that's where I'll finish.  It's never been about the grades so I've made my peace with this a long time ago, and I'll be happy with that as the material really has been great and has significantly contributed to my understanding of the story of the Bible and my place in the 'quest for a life that is spiritual'.

What's Next

Well, I'm not sure, to be honest.  I'm signed up to take ST104 Soteriology with Dr. Kreider again as a Summer course which I'm really excited about.  I'm just not sure how I'm going to be able to pay for it but I have another week to hopefully find a way.  Recent changes in my job have required me to effectively take a 10% pay cut.  Given that the cost of my studies is about 12% of my yearly income, this presents a real challenge.  

 

I'm praying about it and have a few more days to determine if it will be possible for me to continue in the program.  This probably wouldn't have been a major issue if I hadn't already lost a semester due to my medical situation, but if I can't keep pace with the course load, I won't be able to finish the program on time.  And as much as I love the program, I can't really justify this kind of spending towards a non-degree program.  I might perhaps be better served taking remote courses at another institution for the education at a fraction of the cost of DTS.

I'm not out of options yet though, so we'll see what happens.

Getting Less Busy

So as I'm just bonkers busy right now, what am I going to do to bring some organization back to my life to break this routine of controlled chaos?  Well, in my Spiritual Life class, I have an assignment to engage in a spiritual disciple for the next two weeks.  In trying to determine what discipline I should pursue, I've taken an inventory of where I'm spending all of my time during my days and seeking to find areas that I might be able to put away for the time being to free up time to work on my spiritual life and regular life for that matter. 

I had kind of a 'duh' moment in reflecting on my time investments and in the coming weeks I'll be looking to put away digital entertainment and focusing more on my prayer life and time in God's Word.  By my rough estimates, I'll even have plenty of time left over for a lot of other things that I've perhaps neglected (Don't get too excited, I won't be posting during this time).  I think it was perhaps a little concerning to see the amount of time I actually spend consuming digital entertainment; internet, YouTube, Facebook, news, Xbox, TV, etc.  So I'm kind of curious to see what the outcome of this discipline will be. 

This is just another example of how beneficial my Spiritual Life course has been despite my aversion to its structure and execution.  Again, weird!  So I look forward to telling you all about on the back end of my self imposed blackout.