life update.

Life is good.  Crazy, not always as productive as it should be (it never is), but it's good.  I've reconciled myself to letting the PhD train pass by for the year, and I'm thinking about what it is exactly that I want to do with myself when I obtain my masters.

Get a job in Bellingham?  Maybe.  I have my eye on one job in particular.

Today, though, a new option popped onto the horizon:
http://www.daad.org/?p=languagecourses#requirements

Study abroad in Germany in a language intensive program for two months.  All expenses (literally everything - food, lodging, travel, tuition) paid.  Not bad, not bad at all.  That would take care of my itch to go to Europe.  Very nicely in fact.  Once there, I could totally extend my trip by a week or two and see some of the rest of the continent.  It'd be a grand adventure, and a nice way to put off real life.  Also a good thing to put on my resume, and a good way to gain a better working knowledge of German - I'm coming to the conclusion that my exposure here at Western will not gain me the working knowledge of the language that I will need to be successful as a PhD student.

In other news, life here in B-ham has been splendid.  I'm learning so much about myself, growing so much in my faith as I intentionally seek community with other believers, and I think I'm finally becoming an adult in the more full sense of the word (although I'm sure "growing up" will continue well into technical adulthood).  Small groups have been such a blessing this fall - we've had two weeks in a row now of deep, real conversation about the things of God.  Conversations that flow naturally, unhindered by rules about how a small group should go.  Conversations that last well over the prescribed time limit.  Conversations that have changed so much for me, that have reintroduced me to the wisdom of the theology with which I was raised.  Although I still question, and I still struggle with the hard questions, small groups have enabled me to see that others also struggle with these things, and that there is wisdom and light at the end of the tunnel.  I have seen a glimpse of how big the God I serve is.  Bigger than human weakness, doubt, and sin.