Update #12: Great News! And a few more prayer requests!

Dear friends and family,

This is just a quick note as it is getting late here in the Garden State, but I have some great news to share: I have been "recommended for admission" to the second part of my dual-degree program, the Master of Social Work at Rutgers University!!! I am so excited and just want to say thank you to all of you for your prayers! It is so wonderful to see this coming to fruition after five years of dreaming, planning, and working! I could not be doing it without you, my friends and family, and your support!

There are lots of loose ends to be tied up: figuring out state residency requirements so I can save money on tuition, setting up field ed that will get me dual credit (I've already chosen the place and interviewed), and most importantly, getting "in" via Princeton Seminary's side of the program. Allow me to explain: this program has historically had two or three students each year. This year there were seven! The program, however, is capped at four due to finances that Princeton contributes to Rutgers during your "dual" year. With the current economy I can't imagine Princeton being able to find the extra money, besides it would set a precedent they would need to follow later on. So, Princeton has a screening process to help determine placements for the program; please pray that my persistence and familiarity with the registrar here at Princeton will help and my passion and desire for this program would show. I am not sure yet when this screening process will take place, but should be it the next couple of weeks.

One other thing that I would appreciate prayer on is housing for next year: I entered the apartment lottery and did not get an apartment which is a little problematic because I will be commuting between two schools 35 minutes apart and doing field ed for several hours a week. Due to these time constraints I won't be around campus to use the cafeteria during normal meal hours (which are limited) and so living in the dorms and being on the meal plan will be a large waste of money. I will be speaking with the director of housing in the next few days, so please pray that he would have compassion and will be able to see my financial situation as it is.

Thank you all again for all your support and encouragement! I look forward to hearing from you!

Many, many blessings,

Megan

Update #11: Prayers Appreciated!

Dear friends and family,

Thanks for all hanging in there with me people. I know I get bad at keeping you updated, but I want you to know how much I appreciate all your thoughts and prayers. I thought that, today, I would share what's been keeping me from you all for a month now.

After my trip to Dallas at the beginning of February, I made another trip the following weekend back to California, an unexpected and delightful surprise of a trip, for a church synod meeting and a visit home to see my mom. After hauling myself to the train station long before the crack of dawn so I could make it to a 1:00pm meeting in California (sometimes I love traveling west!) and getting done with the meeting I piled myself into the car and made the trek home. A trip down the Blossom Trail (in the Central Valley...if you get a chance this month, go!), a visit with one of my very best friends in the world (practically my sister), and a surprise visit to church later I headed back to San Francisco for my red-eye back to New Jersey. Thankfully after that weekend, the traveling has mostly stopped...until April at least!

More recently, and perhaps more time-consuming, I filled out, wrote, and submitted my application to the second portion of my dual-degree program, the Master of Social Work at Rutgers University. And now I just sit back and wait. Except for a few small snags, all of which could use your prayers in the next couple of weeks: 1) I have to get accepted by Rutgers to do the dual-degree program (hopefully not a problem!), 2) this year there are seven people from Princeton applying to do the dual-degree program, which historically only has 2 or 3 every year, and is actually capped at 4 people due to financial reasons, and 3) in the current economy, I can't imagine that Princeton is going to be able to dig out the necessary funds to expand, though I am praying for that. So, as you can see, prayers would be especially appreciated for this.

We are on "Reading Week" which I am using for some reading, yes, but also for an opportunity to relax a bit. Winter is finally starting to loosen its firm grip around these here parts, and I'm so glad that it's been almost 6 weeks since the groundhog saw his shadow! With the warm weather comes an itching to reorganize and clean...they don't call it spring cleaning for nothing! I hope you are all well, and will write again soon! As always, I love hearing from you and will do my very, very best to respond!

Blessings for a delightful spring,
Megan

The End of an Era

This particular era I speak of is the fall long-term portion of the semester. It is over. Finished. Kaput. And I am happy.

In one week I wrote 11,722 words totalling approximately 47 pages, equalling three papers. And then I drank a very, very large margarita. During finals week I also sang about 16 hours in three rehearsals and four concerts.

I am now focused on Christmas which is blissfully free of papers. I am ignoring the sociological research methods final looming over me in January. I visited Santa Barbara, saw wonderful people, went caroling, did some Christmas shopping and will now embark on the mad dash for the finish line that is Christmas...luckily this is a different...a good kind of mad dash. And then I will relax.

In the meantime, Merry Christmas and prayers for a blessed New Year.
Love,
Megan

Update #8 from Princeton Theological Seminary: "What a blessing!"

Dear family and friends,

Well, the time has come for a new school year, and with it, some wonderful additions to my update list. Before I get going here, as I've said before please feel free to let me know if you'd no longer like to receive my updates and I'll take you off...no love lost. =)

Now, to go further up and further in: there is too much to talk about already! Let's start with the end of the summer. I finished up at First Pres, Visalia at the end of August only after preaching my very first sermon ever! My text was the wedding at Cana...and amazingly enough I felt like it went very well and received a lot of great feedback. What a blessing! Leaving the kids was very difficult as I had become rather attached to them over the summer. We finished the summer off with a girl's spa night and several great weeks of youth group. Again, what a blessing they are.

Along those lines, as I spent some time reflecting on my time at home I found that while I had been apprehensive about returning to Visalia for the summer, and really had no intentions to do that, God knew what he was doing. It was great to spend some time at home with my mom. It was wonderful to reconnect to First Pres and the families there that I used to know better and to get to know some of the newer families and people in the church. It was indeed another example of God's great faithfulness!

After I finished up my job I loaded up my car, drove to Bakersfield and picked up two of my best friends from college to begin our 3,000-mile cross-country road trip! In just seven short days we arrived in Princeton, but not before seeing a friend of ours from college in Colorado, stopping at a glass marble factory and shop in the middle of Kansas, going up 637 feet in the St. Louis Arch, experiencing the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and getting cheesesteaks in Philly! We got my stuff unloaded and prepared for a very busy few days before Jules and Brian left: New York City, Princeton, and church and antiquing!

Now that we're on to present day, school has officially been in session for three weeks! I love my classes this semester, it has been good to reconnect with friends, and enjoy some of my favorite east coast places. And to answer the question I'm sure you're all asking, no, the fall colors are not here...not quite yet.

Well, I believe I'll wrap up for now....this has gone on long enough. I'll write again soon more about my classes and such. I hope you are all well. Please find my address below...I love to get little notes and stuff! ;-)

Many "what a blessing!" moments I wish for you today,
Megan

Unbearable Joy...

Current Princeton Temp: 64 and SUNNY!

It seems so unreal to be coming this close to the end of the semester. To be honest, with all the traveling I've been doing, it feels difficult to believe there even was a spring semester. However, the midterm grades, projects, and upcoming finals are just enough to jerk me back to reality. Guatemala was a rush, and amazing, even more wonderful and heart-touching and awe-inspiring than I expected, and the people I love there are just as incredibly faithful as they were three and a half years ago. Of course, since being there for a month was too short, I knew going back for just one weekend was going to be torture. But it was just as much, and more, worth it than all the torture it inflicted on me. =)

So, back to reality I came...reality introduced itself to me in the form of 35 degree weather on the train platform in Princeton after leaving beautiful 80 degree weather in Guatemala. And then it reintroduced itself to me in the form of schoolwork yet to be done, finals yet to be studied for (or taken) and the impossible amount of fun things I would like to do before the end of the year. Difficult, yes? I thought so too. Then I realized I still needed to get myself a job for the summer!

This is where I am now. Have you seen those Allstate commercials lately where there are people saying where they are and standing on a large red dot? That's how I feel right now. Tonight, the session of Carpinteria Community Church will meet and decide on whether they would like to hire an intern to take over the youth director position for the summer: me. I'm hoping so, and praying so. I love Carp Community, I love living there, and would relish the opportunity (and challenge) of this ministry and job. So, if you're getting this today...and really, whenever you get this...if you could send up a little prayer that my big red dot would move to Carp Community Church for the summer, I would really appreciate it. And if that isn't God's will, that God would show his will...and soon!





"The Lord your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing."
-Zephaniah 3:17

Better Late Than Never...

Current Princeton Temp: 25 degrees

I think the beginning of a new semester is the best time to tell you all about the last one (and by that I mean my first semester, and the most recent one) of my grad school career. Just the bones here (it's too late for anything more)...classes, professors, likes and dislikes. So, here goes...

• Church History 101, taught by Drs. Kathleen McVey and Paul Rorem. It turned out OK, but not my favorite course.
• Orientation to Old Testament Studies, taught by Drs. Jacqueline Lapsley and Dennis Olsen. Great class, lots of information, and a captivating course on the OT, but I was frustrated that I took it, especially when I realized I didn't need to because I could have gotten advanced placement. Grrr...oh well. You live and you learn.
• Introduction to New Testament Greek, taught by Dr. Shane Berg. Interesting course, and I like the idea that I can pick up the Greek New Testament and read it, or I'll be able to at the end of this semester. Tedious work, but I imagine it will be worth it.
• Pluralism, Dialogue, and Witness, taught by Dr. Richard Young. A history of religions course that would have been more aptly named "Christiantity and the Abrahamic Religions" since that was most of what we talked about. Not at all what I was expecting.
• The Self in the System, taught by (although in this case, perhaps the word moderated or facilitated by would be more appropriate) Dr. Robert Dykstra. Great course in pastoral counseling where we looked at several methods of addressing issues related to pastoral counseling. This course included a peer counseling component where we were both counseled by a peer and counseled a peer for 5 weeks...both terrifying and rewarding.

Like I said, the new semester starts soon..7.5 hours to be exact. I'm excited about this semester...oh, but I can't tell you about that yet. ;-) I've got to make you all wait with baited breath. I promise to be more...timely...with this type of thing this semester.

Also speaking of last semester, prayers of thanksgiving are in order. I've received back all but one of my grades and have gotten all A's and B's so far. I'm relieved and thankful...not to mention that working hard on finals and then getting good grades is a great motivator!






"Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school." -Albert Einstein (a Princeton man himself)

Winding down

Current Princeton Temp: 34 and snowing =)

This is me, just coming up for air between finals. I am 80% done with my first round in grad school. That's a good feeling...the one and only left is Old Testament, which I've started (barely) prepping for. It's on Wednesday afternoon at 2:30, and by 5:30 at the latest (5:35 if you take into account packing up my "Relax" lotion, Kleenex, and pens, putting on my scarf, coat and gloves, and walking out of the building) I will be free from all the testing, with one semester of grad school firmly under my belt. I'm excited for that moment. I've been looking forward to it for several weeks now, particularly when I realized how drastic of a change I had made in my life over the past few months and how I was longing to just feel...settled. That isn't quite the right feeling, but it's close. I'm looking forward to know I can make it, that I can survive a semester because surviving this one means I have a pretty good chance of surviving the next one and so on.

Since I am tired because I haven't gotten much sleep (I had my church history final this morning...3 hours long, and then a paper for my religious pluralism class due this afternoon) I'm going to go to bed early tonight and get cracking early tomorrow on my prepping for OT. Prayers, as always during exam time, are coveted as are encouragements, however brief they may be. It's always good to be reminded of why I'm doing this.

Blessings on you all!

I have arrived...

Greetings from New Jersey!

First things first: you're getting this e-mail because you either told me you wanted to receive my updates from graduate school, or because I thought you might want to receive my updates from graduate school. If either of these are not true, let me know and I'll take you off the list, no hard feelings. Alternatively, if you know someone I know and you think they might appreciate getting them, please feel free to forward it.

Sorry to slow you down...

After a semi-grueling 3,007 mile drive by myself across the country, I have arrived at Princeton Theological Seminary! I am very torn between excitement, fear, nervousness, and eagerness. We had the first two scheduled orientation events this evening....a worship service, which was perfect because God used it to speak so powerfully to me as I sat in the chapel for the first time as a student, and a picnic with the faculty and administration, which was yummy. I saw the other Westmont grad who is an entering student this year, had dinner with her and a couple of her friends, and then proceeded to unload my very, very, very full car into my very, very, very large room. I was fortunate enough to get into my first choice dorm, which is also the most popular and have now moved all my stuff in. It's still in a pile in the middle of the floor, but it's in. =)

My new blog can be found at MastersOfEspresso.blogspot.com. I'll hopefully be updating it frequently with the musings of what it means to be in grad school....and other stuff too!

Sorry this is short, but I am exhausted. I'll write more later...promise. In the meantime, I would appreciate prayers for adjusting to a new place, a new culture, and a new climate all away from everything that's familiar to me, as well as new friends and floormates that I want to build relationships with.

Thanks, and love you all!
Megan