Back in Black

Hello folks,
     I am terrible about keeping up with this thing. My apologies. Anyway, spring semester started last week and so far, things are going rather well. Classes haven't gotten too challenging yet and I have gotten back into a groove that I think will allow me plenty of time to get all my classwork done plus do the other things I like to do. I've even gotten back into yoga after taking last semester off from doing it. Right now, I've only been able to go one day a week but I'm hoping to be able to do it two days a week pretty soon. Otherwise, things are going great for me.
     January was spent mostly off except for the week I was in Kentucky taking a class at the Presbyterian headquarters. The class was about introducing us to the six different mission agencies of the denomination and how we can better get our seminaries, churches and presbyteries more involved with the work they do. It was a really great experience and I met some great people. Of course, I also got to spend the week with my old Chicago housemates which was just the icing on the cake. It was so great to see them all again. We had a really fun time reconnecting and hanging out again and it was just the vacation that I needed. The rest of the month was fairly uneventful as it consisted of me watching movies and working at my other job full-time during the week. Not much to write home about there. Now that classes are back in session, though, I feel much more with it. January is a pretty dead time around here which can make things more difficult for us Type A personalities! Now, however, things are back to normal aka busy!! Just how I like it!
     I also wanted to take a second and talk about how things are going for me personally. I made some major life changes recently and I just wanted to take a minute to talk about them. Starting with the first of the year, I made a vow to myself to start the new year off right. I realized that I was spending too much time and energy on things that weren't bringing me happiness and joy but instead were bringing me grief and pain. To that end, I vowed to cut back on my meat consumption. I'm now what is referred to as a "flexitarian" meaning I am only eating meat a certain number of days per week (in my case, 3). The other four days of the week, I am strictly vegetarian with no meat in my diet at all. While at first this proved to be tough and I found myself eating a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and grilled cheeses, it has gotten easier as the weeks have progressed. I'm able to still find ways to make sure I have plenty of protein while also making sure that what I eat is delicious and tasty. I'm also now aware of what kinds of meat I eat and am trying my best to only eat meat that has been treated and/or killed humanely. This is harder than you might think and I am still working on it but I have made significant improvements to my diet without suffering any ill effects from it. Eventually, this may lead to full-on vegetarianism but that hasn't happened yet. For right now, I've made the right decision for myself. The other big change that I've made is that I've completely disabled all of my online dating profiles. While I think online dating is a great thing and I have plenty of friends who have met their special person through it, for me, it just wasn't working. It wasn't contributing anything positive to my life and I found that I was spending more time with it than is healthy. I guess that means that I've technically taken myself out of the dating pool. That's ok. To be honest, I'm not real sure that that is something that I want to get myself entangled with anyway, at least right now. I'm actually in a really healthy place in my life right now and while it would be great to share that with someone else, maybe that's not the right thing for me right now. I'm perfectly happy being single and I'm also content being single. I don't need another person in my life right now. If that other person just happens to come along, then great. I'm certainly not going to fight it but for right now, I'm a whole person without that. I don't need to go looking for it and get my heart broken over and over. I'm done with that. I'm tired of going on dates and all the conversation and the pain when they say that they "just didn't feel the connection". I'm tired of being told that I'm a nice guy but they "just like me as a friend." I'm tired of constantly feeling rejected and unwanted. I'm just tired. I'm done. If someone wants to be with me, let them be the pursuer. I've done all the chasing I'm going to do. I'm focusing on me.
    Lastly, I've been trying to take at least one day per month (usually Saturdays) to spend some time in silence and contemplation. This is a time when I step away from my computer and my phone and just allow myself some time to read, pray, write or whatever else strikes my mood. I've never been very good at being contemplative so this is a real stretch for me but it's also something that I want to become better at. I may eventually stretch it into one day per week but for right now, I think once a month is pretty good for me. Only giving myself three hours because that seems to be a good amount of time to spend on this, especially for me.
   Anyway, I know this blog was pretty lengthy but I figured since it had been a while since people had heard from that you might want to know what is going on in my life. That's all I have to report for now. I will do my best to get back into blogging on a more regular basis but no promises about that. I want to conclude by letting you all know my class schedule for this semester. It's pretty light and represents the least number of units I have ever taken in my life. Here it is:
New Testament Exegesis - M/Th 8:30 to 10 AM
Hebrew Reading - M 6 PM
Gospels & Acts - T 9 to 11:50 AM
Preaching - TH 2 to 5 PM
Plus, a class on the Reformed Confessions which mostly meets online. That's all, folks!!