Still got the FU in me...just WFU, instead.

I know, I know. If you're actually still frequenting this blog looking for updates--which I doubt is the case, since I last posted in, what, February?--this is a welcomed surprise. That is, for the two of you who probably still were reading this back in February, too. I hope to be more time-efficient this year at graduate school, however, so hopefully, I'll write more frequently in the days and weeks to come. Keep your hopes up, and I will as well.

So, my first week as a graduate student at Wake Forest has ended. I am writing this right now from the University Center, which is actually a pretty peaceful place at four o'clock in the afternoon on a Sunday. I am the only one here besides the Food Court staff, save what are probably two undergraduate students eating a few tables over from me. This scenario seems to accurately describe my life so far as a graduate student--I feel as if I am floating at times, a nomadic academic who visits the campus for classes every day but who is not involved enough in the activities it offers to feel as if he is an actual student. This may be a subtle reminder that I am becoming an adult, which does not scare me, but leaves me feeling somewhat awkward nonetheless. I wonder now where some of the time went while I was an undergraduate at Furman.

Also, the realization that I am inching closer to receiving the coveted doctoral degree, and then roaming the country as an unemployed doctor of religion or history looking for work, which ultimately also means I am inching closer to paying back my student loans and paying much higher taxes, reminds me of the fact that I am getting older as well. That does not scare me, either, it just makes me weep every now and then.

In other news, Wake has some fairly big-name people in the world of Christianity coming to speak this year; such as Fred Craddock (Professor Emeritus of Preaching and New Testament at Candler School of Theology at Emory University) and probably most notably, author and speaker and one of the leading figures of the Emergent church movement, Brian McLaren. When McLaren is here, there will actually be a two-day conference on Postmodern Christianity and the Emergent church, and he will also speak in the Divinity School chapel service, along with the campus-wide Chapel service. I've read and would recommend his trilogy of books in his A New Kind Of Christian series. Since he is coming, and I figure that it might be good to have something to contribute to the conversation when he comes, I picked up his book A Generous Orthodoxy yesterday to read. As I am reading it in my down-time between my actual class reading, I may comment if something strikes me.