School as work

One of my biggest concerns about going back to school was dealing with the fact that I wouldn’t be getting up and going to work everyday, as I’ve done almost every weekday for the last twelve years or so.  However, once again, God has proven to take care of that as well.

Since this past week was my first full week of classes I was able to establish a routine that I think will work pretty well.  For the most part, I’ve tried to treat my school as my job which, in essence, it is.  In God’s good providence I’ve got an 8:00 class everyday, which forces me to get up and get going in the morning.  So being at school everyday by 7:45 or 7:50 was just like my work schedule. 

Since most of my classes are in the morning (I have one night class on Tuesday nights) I have class no later than 12:30 on any given day.  However, rather than just going home, I’ve been staying at the seminary to study until around 5:00 or so.  This has allowed me to really focus on my studies for several hours in an uninterrupted fashion.  While I do have a basement study at home, I’m afraid that if I tried to do more studying at home, there’d be too many distractions.

So I get home around 5:00 or so and am able to dedicate the evening to the family until the kids go to bed.  Then if necessary, (and it usually is) I can put in another hour or two of studying downstairs.

This has also worked well for my job in the Admissions office.  I usually put in about 3 hours in the morning on Tuesday and Thursday since on those days I’m done with class at 9:30 already.  Then I still have the afternoons to study before heading home at five.

So even in this we’ve found the Lord to be faithful.  So far, I’ve been able to keep everything balanced.

Oh, and guess what else Michael is learning?  The ability to say No.  As some of you may know, I’ve had a rough time with that in the past, but I’m learning.  I was nominated to serve as a class rep on the Seminary Student Senate, which would have added about four hours of work a month to my schedule.  However, even though it would have been something that I would have enjoyed, I respectfully declined.  Jessica was quite pleased!   =)