Unplanning

After a blessed four week hiatus, the proverbial elements of collegiate life are creeping back into my existence. The past week was spent reviewing syllabi, listening to the semester’s first lectures, and predicting both the welcomed knowledge and the unwelcomed anxiety the course load will bring. I love learning but I wish it didn’t include those pesky all-nighters and occasional states of mental and emotional breakdown.

I suppose I entered this semester with more apprehension than any other (excluding the very first of course, as I was a scared-shitless-awkward freshman who had just returned to the U.S.). Okay, I was a little apprehensive about L.A. Term, but only because I thought I would fall in love with the city and hate being back on a college campus the following semester. Thankfully, I fell in love with the city but managed to not hate APU upon returning. In fact, last semester was probably my most enjoyable on-campus term. It was, however, characterized by a few decisions that would have floored me a year or two ago (which should explain recent apprehension). I decided to change my major. Twice.

Yes, Bethany the enthusiastic global studies major who was enamored by her study of choice and considered it superior to all others (okay, maybe not quite to that degree) changed her mind. The first time I stayed close to home and chose an older sister of global studies, the more established field of sociology. A few months into the semester, I decided to completely veer off the original path and do a little dance with biblical studies. It seems that this dance will be the one that will last until graduation (one can only hope).

It appears that my last year and a half as an undergraduate will be completely different than I once suspected.

Last semester, I thought my spring term would consist of courses on the complex subjects of globalization, poverty, systemic oppression, and patriarchy. Instead, I’m currently learning about the equally complex but incredibly different subjects of inner-biblical exegesis, Second Temple Judaism, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Hebrew Poetry, and contemporary Christian theology. The switch has been so striking that it literally feel like as though I’ve switched universities.

Less than a year ago, I thought that I would be preparing for my global learning term around this time, getting ready to leave for Beira, Mozambique or perhaps London, England. But instead of spending four months of 2009 in Africa or Europe, I’ll be in Azusa my entire senior year. It might sound less exciting but I’m really quite excited. I’ve hopped back and forth from country to country my entire life, which has made geographical stability more foreign to me than travel. I do want to see and experience more countries but I believe more than ever that the rest of the world will get on just fine without me. I may very well live outside of the United States again but it can wait until after I graduate. I’m thinking that remaining close to my family that once was far and walking besides friends from whom I would have been far sounds more like what I need and want in my life right now.

Though the global studies and sociology majors will not appear on my diploma, they remain an essential part of who I am. I don’t regret having poured myself deeply into those subjects without receiving official credit for them. They gave me more life credit than I could ever begin to describe and continue to shape my thinking about the world I inhabit, stirring my heart to pursue and manifest justice and love.

I still don’t fully understand how the switch happened. At the end of the day, I think the simplest answer is that biblical studies and theology classes were more appealing to me because they are part of one of APU’s strongest departments; we have fantastic professors in those areas. Last semester I found myself wishing I had the time to take more religion classes because I had enjoyed them so much; eventually it just made sense to switch my major. I figured that while my passion and learning about societal issues would continue no matter what I studied, I would perhaps never again have the opportunity to learn about Greco-Roman history, biblical interpretation, and apocalyptic literature from scholars and teachers who make my brain spin in the most delightful and frustrating of ways.

While my past majors drastically confronted my conceptualization of the world and occasionally wrecked havoc on my emotions, they did not necessarily challenge me on a mental or academic level (with the exception Mangan the Great, who is no longer at APU). And as much as I’ve tried to tell myself in the past few years that I’m not as academic as I once was, I’m realizing that’s a bunch of bullshit. I’m total nerd-status (and am more than okay with that). In my first week as a biblical studies major, I truly felt like I was at an institution of higher learning and already starting soaking it up. For the next year and a half, I’ll be exploring various components on my faith with an intensity I’ve never before known. I’ve always had so many questions about the Bible and I’m excited to be taught by those who don’t shirk the questions with cliché evangelical answers but recognize textual complexities while remaining deeply committed to following after God and living like Jesus. Biblical studies will probably make me weepy at times like global studies did, as my once-firm worldview becomes re-edified in light of newly received information and experience. It will probably, like global studies and sociology, make me feel more like a stranger in many of the places that used to feel like home and cause me to feel at home in some of the places I once thought to be strange. Knowing that makes me want to both laugh and cry.

It is interesting to reflect on the past and notice how few of my large-scale plans and ambitions have come to fruition. And for the most part, I am exceedingly grateful for that. While I started last week out with apprehension, wondering if perhaps I had made a mistake in switching my major, I now feel as though I’m exactly where I need to be; and for a sojourner, there is perhaps no greater feeling.

The return of the monster Narcissism

I knew this day would come. I knew I would eventually return to the habit of spewing ideas and divulging emotions on the internet. I am too self-absorbed and introspective to do otherwise.

Plus, blogging is cool. Mmhmm. But let the record show: I started my first blog when I was fourteen, before it was all the rage. Actually, it was probably popular then but I didn’t know it because I wasn’t one of the cool kids; so I thought I had made a great discovery or something.

I opened a Xanga account at the very end of eighth grade. It was only a few weeks later that I would be returning to the Thin Country (that is, Chile). I wanted to have a place in which I could chronicle my high school years and thereby allow my friends in California to read about my adventures; but it really just became a place in which I formed virtual “friendships” with other bloggers. Eventually, I convinced friends of mine in high school to join the world of Xanga and for a brief span of time, our world of Xanga was quite, quite cool. But it died down and none of us really write on our Xangas anymore (Facebook is now much, much cooler). I tried keeping up with my blog during my freshman year of college but posts became rather sporadic after that. And for some reason, I have decided to return to the land of online journaling as I enter into the spring of my junior year.

I truly enjoy writing. I always have. And I like my writing to be read on occasion, which makes blogging a most suitable outlet. Some of the feedback I received from certain Xanga entries gave me tremendous confidence as a writer. Other entries received little attention but remain invaluable to me, reviving my present memory, filling it with images and emotions that would have otherwise been forgotten. Photographs and journals have been instrumental in reminding me where I am from and occasionally seem to whisper hints of where I might be going.

Blogging is also communal by nature. Reading the words of others, whether they are those of friends or strangers, helps me catch a glimpse of where other individuals have been, where they are, and where they might be going. Online exchanges of written words lack the flesh and bones of face-to-face conversations, but they are not completely shallow.

And maybe, just maybe, they are not entirely narcissistic either.