November 18, 2007

Lauran Lloyd
November 18, 2007

This day started dark and early for me – I was up at the unholy hour of 5:00 partying in the library, trying to hurridly cram all the information we had learned over the past three months into my brain so in a few short hours I could embark on the exhausting Palestinian Modern History final planned for after breakfast. I managed to squeeze a decent amount of information in before, during, and after breakfast, then headed to the (as usual, freezing cold) forum to decide the fate of my grade. The final took most of the two hours but, surprisingly, was not harder than I expected, Our teacher gave us some pleasingly easy breaks (finding and recording information sources, AKA web sites) so the test wasn’t too unpleasant. What a relief to be done! I felt the nagging urge to study for our Jewish Modern History final which was to be held the next day, Nov. 19th, but I persuaded myself out of that way of thinking – I’m really good at that. An enjoyable lunch was followed by some enjoyable time on the computer pretending to do homework (sneaky, sneaky) and, between emailing and pictures and chatting, etc., I actually ended up getting a fair amount of studying done, which justified me staying in the center instead of partying out on the town like many of my fellow classmates did. This all came to an end a little after 3:00 when we all found refuge in the gym. There was almost two dozen of us running around in there trying to pulverize each other with the soccer ball – with all the pent up energy and frustrations that finals bring it was quite the intense game. Not too many life-threatening injuries though, and we all had a lot of fun. We played for hours. Dinner was great, and I did a bit more studying. I was happily rescued from that by Sarah, Amy, Craig, Kendra, etc. We took refuge in the Oasis and had a rockin’ yet surprisingly successful study party. We were confident in our knowledge to carry us on to victory for the following day’s exam. The studying session went well past midnight, and I ended up staying up even later talking with Sarah and Amy on the amazingly, wonderfully, incredibly comfortable bean bags… ah, the glory of fabric and beans and comfort!!
My goal in studying the New Testament is to find a way closer to Christ. I want Him to come alive for me as a person, someone who had experiences not unlike my own, to see Him in a different light than an omniscent, perfect, unruffled more-than-human being. I want to study His teachings in depth, to know historical background behind the parables and his sermons. I want to know about where He went and What He did there. I want my testimony of hom to grow and for me to feel closer to Him.