Thursday, November 11, 2010

Princeton: Day 2

Today was a marathon day. I am just now getting an extended break. Overview of today: breakfast, multicultural relations presentation, interview, intro to worship and spiritual life, worship service, luncheon with faculty, class, housing presentation, field ed presentation, campus life/student organisation presentation, dinner with student body and then freedom.
My interview went REALLY well. The person interviewing me was Rev. Deborah Davis. She's a PCUSA pastor and the director of field education. I talked about a lot of things I hadn't intended to talk about… like my family. She's familiar with fourth so she sort of understood my background. She said she cab totally see me at Princeton and that she is on the admissions committee and will be campaigning for me. So yay!
Lunch with the faculty was great too. There were two faculty at my table. They were Rev. Deborah Davis and Dr. Rob Dykstra. He is a huge fan of my friend Tim Hughes which works in my favour. Seemed like a great professor and was totally honest about the school.
Auditing a class was great! I went to Syriac Christianity and the rise of Islam. As I was walking there, I ran into my friend Henry. He told me it was a boring class, but i decided to go anyway. It was mainly about biblical translations and illuminated translations which seemed rather interesting. I took notes and plan to look some things up.
The housing presentation wasn't too informative. However, Austin (one of the student hosts) brought us over to Alexander Hall to see his dorm room. I love PTS dorms! All of the rooms are singles and each floor is a different gender. Hodge is the fun dorm and is the most closely connected community. Brown has the biggest rooms but is quiet. Alexander is meh but that's the one I saw and it seems amazing. Plus the dorms are two seconds from the classes which prevails to my lazy side.
I think maybe the most helpful part of the day was the field ed presentation. The director presented and then current Students shared their experiences. Two of them did a summer placement abroad ( one in south Africa the other in India). They all genuinely loved their placements. Also it seems there is a field ed opportunity for almost anything you can think of. I like this because I'm not sure where I'm headed. I know I feel called. I don't feel a call to pastoral ministry though. My interests are social justice, the global south, and ecumenical relations. I'm not sure what I want to do but I want t to involve those things. The field ed presentation made me feel that it doesn't matter that I'm unsure of what I want to do and that it's okay that my interest isn't in pastoral ministry. I have to do 1 church placement but the other can pretty much be ANYTHING! I think that is when I really started feeling that Princeton could be the place for me.
Instead of exploring the local bar, I went to a worship service. I'm a dork…I know. It was Christian/Sikh/Hindu and it was amazing. If I come to Princeton I'm so getting involved with INU.
I've run into multiple griefs today. As I already said, I ran Ito Henry today. Found Tyson in the dining hall. Been with Hailey since yesterday. Saw Megan but didn't get to actually approach her. And some one I did nt expect to see: Andy Kort!!!! Tonight was the field ed fair and Andy was there to be a field ed site. I was so happy to see him!

Okaay...time for sleep. Tomorrow will finish up my visit at Princeton, and The long drive home =(

2 comments:

  1. Hey Devin - I'm glad you are having a good experience. I am also a fan of Dr. Dykstra, for the record. Glad you met him. We should talk when you get back!

    Tim

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  2. Whoohoo Dev,
    So proud of you! Lets talk soon.

    Faythe

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