BGLASS WEEK!

So, today is the start of Princeton Theological Seminary's BGLASS week. BGLASS (Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Seminarians) is a fabulous group here I have made most of my friends and actually feel welcomed and accepted for who I am. Something that was majorly lacking before I came here.


BGLASS be with you.
And also with you. 
We uplift our queers.
We lift them up to the Lord. 
It is right to support our queers and allies.

As of Yet Untitled

Tonight, at Princeton Theological Seminary, was the intercultural cafe. For the first time ever 5 student groups came together to put on this event. BGLASS, AAPTS, ABS, ALS, and WC but on an amazing evening, if I do say so myself (I helped with the planning). We had an open mic portion with performances of poetry, song and spoken word. My friends, Chad and Jason, preformed a short story written by David Sedaris which was phenomenal! Pam sang Mr. Cellophane (from Chicago) and Ryan read a poem in Spanish and English. There were many other truly amazing pieces as well.

I shocked myself by emerging from my shell and sharing a truly personal piece that I have written. The reaction to it was great from my friends that were there. When I stood at the mic I felt like my heart was chilling out somewhere by my toes and even after preforming I felt like my heart my come up out of my mouth. It has been a few hours since I preformed it and I am still nervous about it. I have never done anything this personal in public before. Since it has already been shared with the world, I might as well post it here.

They tell me that twenty two is too young to write

There’s still so much you’ve yet to see

You haven’t been married

You have no kids

What could you possibly have to say?

Twenty two may be too young to write

But me, I’m learning to start living life

You don’t have to read and you don’t have to care

But I have stories that I’m going to share

The story of a scared little girl

In a cold dark world

The story of the preteen who watches her beloved Daddy

Try to end his life

On the same same night her brother pulled out a knife

The story of a ten year old who runs away from home

Only to discover that no one knows

The story of a teenage girl clinging to anyone just to feel loved

I can tell you all about the day I walked through the metal detectors

To find the D, the Y, the K, the E carved into my locker

I can tell you about being a confused teen trying to be perfect yet wanting to love

I can tell you about the outsider in high school

The one who wore long sleeves and  pants in july to hide the wounds

About the college student reflecting on love

About being different in a conservative Christian realm

Where true thoughts are repressed to avoid the backlash

I have stories about being avoided because you’re gay

When you don’t identify yourself that way

But now, now  I have new stories

Stories of acceptance and of welcome

Tales of friends and truly amazing hugs

So yes, I have stories

Stories of pain and oppression

Stories of struggle and self-hate

Stories of acceptance and victory

Stories of growth and love

But of course, They say twenty two is too young to write

Update on Life in Seminary

I'm going to take a break from my New Testament Exegesis homework to update the world on my life. Okay, honestly, I have not started the Exegesis homework...but I will get to it. I have not blogged in eons so I thought I would remedy that. 

Where to begin?

Princeton Theological Seminary is amazing and I am so glad I came here! The people are amazing, the classes are amazing, the professors are amazing, and everything is so amazing! I am being completely serious, but allow me to elaborate. As i have said previously, the people here are phenomenal. Since the fall semester is underway, I have met even more people and I am just impressed with the high caliber of people here. Everyone is awesome for his or her own reasons but all in all everyone is great. In addition, it's not just students. The faculty and staff are great too. I am particularly in love with David Wall, the registrar. He helped me get everything together so I could register and stay when it looked like everything was going to hell in a hand basket. He is amazing and helpful and friends with Burns.

The classes are intense and it is quite evident that AUC did not prepare me for this. I clearly have a bachelor's in bullshit! I have a 20 page paper due in 3 weeks and I have never written a paper that long before. The writing center is going to become my best friend! There is a lot of reading and everything is more intense that it was in college and I am going to struggle but I will make it work and I will learn so much.

I have attended karaoke night at the IVY a couple of times so far and that is overly entertaining. I have been to a party at one of the private clubs at the University. I have attended Shark Week and my first hall party (big fan of Brown 2). I have made so many phenomenal friends already. One great thing I have experienced is joining a club. 

Tonight I attended the first meeting of BGLASS (which stands for Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Supporters). We talked about the many different events that will be taking place this year. Amazing things like attending a Mennonite hymn sing, opening worship an intercultural café, events with the covenant Presbyterians and the Yes Coalition (and maybe GLAAD, service projects, BGLASS week, hosting forums on the OT and the NT as well as the possibility of getting together with Princeton University as well as the Westminster Choir College. I am incredibly excited to be involved with this. In fact, I sort of dove right in and will be helping with opening worship as well as representing BGLASS in working on the Intercultural Café with other campus groups. BGLASS is essentially everything that I wished I had in college. I am extra excited and thankful for this in my life as I am struggling to figure out my life.

People at PTS

I love the people at PTS. It's only summer and most of the students aren't actually on campus yet but I love everyone that I have met! There are so many different personalities here and I've ended up bonding with different people over really different things.

One of my favorite people is Liz. She's from New York but went to college in Massachusetts, so like me she has a love and an appreciation of Boston! She digs on my accent but can also understand what I'm saying. For the times that I get really emotional or have too much to drink and people can't understand me because my accent gets really thick, Liz will serve as my subtitles. She is a hardcore Sox fan and Bruins fan. She also hates full service gas stations, just like me. I have also bonded over food allergies; she's allergic to Peanuts and I'm allergic to dairy. Her allergy will kill her, mine makes me wish I were dead. We also both have overwhelming fears of both inconveniencing people and of confrontation. While talking at the Tap Room last night we also figured out that we both have issues using public bathrooms. The things you learn!

There's so many other great people here like

• Andy- The hipster from West Chester who constantly hates on Boston
• Will- The outdoors man who makes bird noises without realizing it
• Alison- The girl that will single-handed reform the food industry and make us all Kosher
• Ridgley- The charming southern gal who swears like a trucker when in parking garages. 
• Peter- The 17 year old theology prodigy who is still in high school but taking summer Greek while working on college admissions essay. Affectionately called Doogie Bonhoeffer. 
• Vincent- The Catholic entertainment lawyer from New York City
• Stan- The former orthopedic surgeon...talk about a pay cut!
• Mike- Such an interesting guy, I don't know what to say about him, he is just great even if he won't admit that there is a ghost living next door to him. 
• Amy- my lovely next door neighbor who constantly fears she wakes me up and speaks approximately 12 languages (slight exaggeration). 

That's just a small sampling of people here. Everyone is so great and I've been engaged in and observing the most interesting conversations. I cannot wait to see what the next three years brings. 

It's All Greek To Me

So I made it! It took me almost 6 hours to get to Princeton, thank you Bronx traffic, but I made it. When I got here I checked in and started moving stuff into my room. Alexander 303 is where it's at. I only ended up unloading half of my stuff because it was so blessedly hot and I had a huge headache. Unloaded my bedding and then stuff I needed for class and a bunch of clothes. I need to remember to run down to my car at some point this afternoon to get my sneakers. After unloading half of my stuff I was hot, tired, and thirsty. I decided to walk down the street to the Wawa. I had never experienced anything like it. It's like Subway meets a smoothie bar meets a cumbys. It was fantastic and I love it!

Last night there wasn't much to do so I hung in my room until there was a knock on my door and was invited to go hang out with people on the quad. I wasn't going to, because I was tired, but I'm glad I did. I got to talk to incoming students and current students. I learned different things about the school, the area and the professors. At 10:30 I wandered back to my room and read and texted with a friend back home.

Greek this morning was great. The professor seems like a really great professor. It's Greek so it will suck and Dr. P said that they are well aware that most of us do not want to be there. It's going to be a good 8 weeks even though it will be very hard. I'm meeting loads of great people and I cannot wait to meet more. I'm also enjoying exploring aimlessly.

I'm learning interesting things, which I plan to keep a list of. Here's the beginning:

• Other seminaries teach the Velveeta of Greek (bits and pieces but not the real thing)
• Some Greek authors  follow the rules and some don't...kind of like Greek bankers.

Princeton wrap-up

I am really glad I decided to take the trip down to Princeton. I have known so many people that have gone through Princeton that I had an image of it in my headed, but I really needed to go there and see if the image in my head actually matched up with the school. Overall, I would say that it did. Here is my breakdown of Princeton:
What I liked:

• The campus is beautiful
• Almost everyone lives on campus, which is great because it puts a real emphasis on community
• Faculty all live very close to campus
• There are three dorms on campus and everyone is intermingled (it isn't like Juniors live in one, middlers in another, and seniors in a third). I went into a dorm room and it was gigantic compared to dorms at other schools. And everybody gets a single!
• the faculty I met seemed very approachable and students say that the faculty is amazing
• There seems to be a great dining area (yes they always put out better food when prospectives come but the regular food was great too), they know how to cook proper vegetarian food (not the AUC fake stuff), and they will cater for dietary needs!
• Worship isn't mandatory but it is offered every day. And every service is different.
• There is a multicultural aspect.
• Everyone on campus genuinely seems nice. Students, faculty, staff, etc stopped and talked to me because I was looking at the school.
• It's PCUSA, so basically I could be living polity everyday, which will really help with the ordination process
• 100% of tuition is covered
• Not everyone is going into Pastoral Ministry. I have no clue what I want to do. I feel called to serve in ordained ministry but I'm not sure in which capacity. I have interests in Social Justice, The Global South,and Ecumenical relations but what can I do with that?
• The classes are amazing. And just because 2 people are getting the same degree doesn't mean they will take the same classes. My friend and her husband have both done the M.Div program at PTS and only took 3 of the same classes.

What I don't like:

• It's 5 hours from home...I'm sick of driving after the first 2 hours
• I got lost in the middle of nowhere New Jersey on my way home!
• It's more rural than I was hoping for (but apparently its 1 hour to NYC, 1 hour to Philly, not too far from the Poconos, not two far to the beach, etc so you make it work)

Obviously the list of things I like greatly outweigh the list of things I don't like. So if I get in, it's pretty easy to see that PTS would be my choice.