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Well I unfortunately have some bad news for everyone. But bear with me through the bad and you’ll eventually get to the good! I figured I’d put the bad first to it’s out of the way. If you REALLY don’t want to, I guess you could skip the bad and jump ahead to the good. But where’s the fun in that?
First order of bad news is that I’m broke. I know, shocker, right? But wait it gets worse because I’m even more broke than before (otherwise known as being broke-er [which is also known as being a “student”]). You may be asking yourself (or me, through our internet-enhanced connection) why this might be. Simple reason? I had to buy books. A LOT of books. A lot of EXPENSIVE books. Even used (and believe me, I bought used whenever possible). The grand total was up there close to $3000. YIKES! To make matters worse, I just paid a deposit of $605 for my J-term class. Even more YIKES!
Now you could be thinking to yourself at this moment “well yeah that’s expensive and probably hurts him, but it’s now THAT bad.” To this I must say “wait, it gets better (or is that worse?)” Not only did I fork over all that money, but I also (because I had one-click payment on for amazon) inadvertently sent ALL the books to my address back home. I know, I’m a genius. I can’t blame Amazon for this, since it was my error, but it certainly adds to the frustration levels. It’s a good thing I’m headed home in September (WOO HOO! COME TO CHURCH AND SEE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) so that I can grab my books while home.
Okay, that’s all the bad news, now on to the GOOD news!
First off, that J-term deposit? Yeah, it’s so that I can go to the HOLY LAND! I will be on a 16 day journey from January 5th to the 20th. Even better than this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? I’ll be celebrating my birthday in Bethlehem/Galilee! how cool is that?! I am already so excited for this amazing opportunity, and can’t wait to see the Holy Land up close and in person! I am sure I will learn a ton and grow spiritually through this process. The sticker price does scare me ($4,000 + additional expenses like Passport, meals etc.) but I can’t let money stop me from enjoying this magnificent opportunity.
Another good piece of news is that I got a 93% on my final exam for Summer Greek! This makes me so happy, because I managed to get an A for the class grade (I PASSED) and feel like I’ve learned a lot and acquired some invaluable tools for the future. I hope to be able to continue the trend through the next four years (though I doubt I’ll be able to manage A’s in all the classes) and prove that I have what it takes. I must admit that I have worried about my family, my money situation, my weight and a number of other things while here, but in all that time I NEVER worried that this wasn’t the path I was meant to take.
One last final piece of good news? I had an absolute blast with my mom and aunt while they visited me here. The only dark spot of the entire experience was not being able to watch the Packers game. We did manage to listen to it over the radio, so even that wasn’t TOO bad. We explored the area (sometimes on purpose, sometimes on accident) ate delicious food (both homemade and at The Athenian Grill) and enjoyed ourselves each day. Wednesday I introduced my home family to my seminary family at club oivos. Thursday were spent a good five or six hours exploring the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium before enjoying a delicious supper of pork chops and asparagus. The night was, of course, made complete by listening to the Packers game and discussing theology. Friday (today) we only had a little time, but made the trek up the tower here at the castle and enjoyed the picturesque view of Dubuque from above.
It would certainly seem that my highs well outweigh my lows this week. I am eternally grateful that God has been so good to me, and can only hope that he will use me to help out others in life who need support, guidance, care or even just a friendly face. I hope the good outweighs the bad in your lives as well. Let me know if there’s something you would like me to talk about in future blogs as well. I would love suggestions for topics, opportunities for personal growth, etc.
As always, God Bless!
P.s. Mom and Aunt Lynn brought delicious cookies for me! Another point for the positive side!
p.p.s. did you know p.s. stands for post-script? And, consequently, p.p.s. stands for post- post-script.
deperetoseminary 
Comments on: "Hardcover Headache!" (4)
Hey Paul I think you have a typo. There looks to be an extra 0 in your book amount.
Oops, my bad! Yeah, books aren’t quite that expensive. Thanks for catching that, Mary!
Glad I came to the blog to see it was a typo after reading the original in email and wondering what class you have that we don’t have that had all the super expensive books 😉
If you ever catch a similar Amazon error before something ships out, call them because I have found out from experience that their customer service is excellent!
Well it’s all those wizarding books. I just can’t seem to get the Wingardium Leviosa spell down… But all kidding aside, I’ll have to try that tactic next time (and I’m sure there will be a next time) because I tried changing the address on the website and you had to change the payment type as well. Sigh. Just a big mess. I gave up after attempting it with two of the orders. I should be going home in time to pick up all the books, so that won’t be too big of an issue. Thanks for reading!