Head swimming in seminary

Hi everyone,Well, orientation week is almost over and it's been wonderful exceptthat my brain is so extremely full. My class has just declareditself the "most awesome class ever." So far, I cannot argue. Wehave some amazing people and have bonded very quickly. Today, infact, we all went to the bookshop and revived one another as we oneby one felt rather faint over the sticker shock of the texts. Youknow, in college, religion books were the cheapest of any major andI think this is how God pays us back.Meanwhile, I have one of the most unusual seminary course loadsever: Beginner's Arabic 1, Jesus and Mohammed, Christians andMuslims, Worship, and Pentateuch. I will be trying to test out ofChurch History and need to cram before September 10th. Wish I wouldhave discovered this sooner. Later, I can take advanced Luther,Paul, and Ethics, maybe advanced Prophets, and many more oddconfigurations. I am grateful not to have to think of those justright now, though.My 'present' roommate and I are getting along swimmingly. (Not sosure yet about 'absent' roomate, who has been so thus far bothphysically and relationally. I guess getting engaged does that topeople). Anyway, we acheived making supper the other night, and hada glass of wine to celebrate our urban domesticity. She is fromsouthwest Wisconsin and as such had a bottle of wine called 'BadgerBlush.' My cross-cultural education continues, and it wasdelicious.Speaking of cross-cultural education, today we had a workshop onhearing the diverse voices at the seminary. To my surprise, thefirst speaker was a conservative white man. He said that he wasplanning to vote for Bush in the next election, knew of no facultymembers who shared his views, and only four students out of thewhole student body. Wow. Aside from a gut sense of relief (thoughI'm no great supporter of Kerry, either), I thought it was actuallyquite good for him to identify and speak about that experience. Iknow I chose to come here over other seminaries precisely because itwas liberal, global, and ethnically diverse, and was overjoyed tosee how much of my class was just such. Incidentally, anotherstudent identified as the 'gay Norweigan man' and said that he roomswith the conservative and has not killed him yet. Yet anotherstudent got up and said he embodied the 'straight white guy' whofelt last year that because of his role of majority power insociety, had less or nothing constructive to contribute to thediscussion, but ultimately found his voice. The third speakerthat really caught my attention as unusual for a forum like this wasthe Masters of Divinity Diaconal Ministry student--there's only fouron campus, and are not really understood yet by the rest of thecommunity. Myself, I think it's a beautiful idea. I'm actuallylooking at changing over shortly. Another reason why my head isswimming and my course schedule is a little disjointed.I speak here about Iraq on the 14th over lunch to kick off the'Global Table Talks,' and my advisor would like me to speak at leasttwo other times this year on CPT and Israel/Palestine. Maybe I'lldo a joint fourth talk with a Presbyterian student who was also inArizona with me this summer.One of my classmates told me yesterday I was her new hero. Yikes.It's flattering, but I don't think I'm ready for that here. When doI get a hero? Being in Iraq is a real conversation-stopper, I'vediscovered. I haven't had anyone say anything that wasn't extremelypositive and supportive, but I do feel a little set apart. It'stempting in some ways for me to not mention it at all, to blend in,to not take the responsibility for speaking out and educating thatcomes with it. But, I think I've already figured out that I willstand out here, no matter what I do, and maybe that is not such abad thing. At least I've found community.We've started a women's Bible study which met for the first timelast night and includes both seminary students and wives-of. It'sreally good, and is also functioning a bit as a support group forus. One of the women talked about how coming here is like being aplant getting watered. I liked the image and went home and got mycrayons and drew a Le Anne-plant under the watering can. I havebeen realizing how in this past year of working in the desert, howlittle 'water' there really was.I am not sure if I mentioned earlier that I have had many fineopportunities to get lost in our building. The most excitingadventure was being locked in a stairwell for half an hour lastweekend. I didn't realize when I left the computer lab that theyclose off all but the main stairwell on the weekends for securitypurposes--there weren't any signs. So, once I got in, I went fromfloor to floor and ended up at the bottom in a glass box with a doorwhich had a sign on it saying "DO NOT EXIT or alarm will sound." Ithought to myself, 'how much more embarrassing do I want to makethis experience?' So I waited until a teenage girl walked by andthen waved to her frantically. She waved back and kept walking. SoI pounded on the door and that got her attention, then she wentaround upstairs and held the door open for me to escape. I thankedher profusely. She was one of the professors' kids.There are many extremely nice kids around here: three teen boyscarried a very bulky cabinet up to our third-floor apartment theother night and I fed them cake and ice cream afterwards. Then whenroomie returned, they bounded down and brought up the groceries fromher car two blocks away. Last night, we had three young neighborgirls in our apartment, one making chocolate chip cookies with usand the other two watching Disney movies. One of the younger girlsasked me which languages I spoke. I replied that I spoke Arabic,German, and a little Spanish. She replied, "I speak Zulu, and shespeaks Korean." At the time, the other girl was on the phone to herfather and I could see that for myself. All three breeze betweentheir mother languages and English. The two Zulu-speakers are fromSouth Africa and live just downstairs. The girl who asked me aboutlanguages, who is perhaps seven, also told me my room was verymessy. Hmm. Maybe tonight I'd better finish unpacking. At lunchtoday another student said his room was a disaster also. Since he'ssure he wants to get ordained, we suggested he hire a churchsecretary sooner rather than later.peace,Le Anne