Top 20 Things I've Learned in my First Semester of Seminary

Inspired by Keith

1. Transitioning from one intense, intentional community to another takes time. It's very easy to miss both groups when out of town and feel completely lonely when surrounded by one.
2. Even if it's a violation of the rubrics, I'd rather be dismissed from the back of a church after a recessional hymn than be dismissed and held hostage by a recessional (with or without hymn).
3. Having a variety of friends is essential to seminary life, and it's okay to find them on the internet.
4. The hardest part of long distance relationships is not having someone to hold you when you fall into the pit of despair.
5. God has a way of giving you obligations or situations to put things in perspective or to force reconciliation.
6. Despite its regular worship services, a lot of surprising things can happen during liturgies in the Chapel of the Good Shepherd.
7. I would rather hear silence than an amen corner that agrees without any elaboration or defense or further contribution.
8. Some of my cattiest friends are the first to call people out for just being mean.
9. Foul-weather friends who swoop in only when things are getting bad may actually be more annoying than the fair-weather friends who leave right then.
10. Sue Sylvester is not a real person and cannot mess with people's ordination processes.
11. I made too many assumptions about my peers based on Facebook profiles and geography of origin.
12. Most of my assumptions were proven wrong by the end of orientation week, and I'll forever be thankful for that.
13. Whenever the word "Methodist" is mentioned in lecture, all eyes will look at me, despite my not being the only person with Methodist sympathies.
14. Slightest alteration of routine time spent with someone or a group may potentially negatively affect the rest of the week.
15. While work study might be heavier on the work than the study, I have an awesome job.
16. I need anonymous noise to do homework effectively: from Starbucks to the corridor at Chelsea Market.
17. It may only be Advent, but singing Christmas songs (NOT carols) in a group does wonders for how one approaches the day.
18. Being the almost youngest can be a downside, but in some groups it's a plus as that everyone else has most of their shit together already.
19. Memorization is not the way I learn; I would much rather intuit a verb by its context than parse it first in the sentence
20. My worth is not determined by my grades or any other arbitrary external standard (like ability to memorize a paradigm).
20.5 Actually believing that takes time, and I'm not there yet, but God and I are working on it.