Define: Intense

Due to poor planning on my part, I decided to take a winterim course which ran from January 4-14th, Monday thru Friday 8:30-12:30. I'm one of those people who think the stress and mild strain on the schedule of a 10 day class is worth the 3 credits rather than have to sit through an 8+ week class. The poor planning portion of that is that I didn't realize my 'regular' MAAP courses started that week as well, so I was enrolled in 3 classes at once; I was under the impression that winterim's were stand alone. . . apparently I was wrong.

Define intense: Theology 100 "The Foundation of a Christian Experience", in a winterim format by Michael Ketterhagen. In the past I've had winterims so I was thinking, no big deal-the profs are usually pretty sympathetic to the fact that people have lives outside of school thus not much homework, heavy reading, etc. Wrong again. . . On average I read 3 chapters a night, daily terminology quizzes, had to write 1 page summaries to questions like define theology?, how is God human and God?, what is the holy spirit?, define salvation. You know cause it's really easy to sum those answers up in one page (insert sarcasm here). Dr. Ketterhagen was challenging, I re-wrote 4 of my papers in an effort to ensure a good grade in the class; and papers are typically my strong suit. There were two larger papers due as well. Lastly, he required us to complete a service learning experience, I chose participating in loaves and fishes, which is a program where groups prepare a meal at a local church, and serve to those in need. I took Alex along to the service learning, it was a really great experience for both of us. However challenging Dr. Ketterhagen was, he was a great teacher which made the intensity and stress well worth it in the end.

So for two weeks of my life I felt completely bombarded between the three classes, something I rarely feel. . . and in hindsight I really wish I would have taken the class in the traditional format so I had more time to take in all the information. I'm at a point in my life that those types of things interest me. And I felt kind of "old" in the class, most of the students were traditional and spent a large amount of their time texting-and then it fathomed me how when the daily terminology quizzes rolled around they were aceing them-and I was completely bombing them. I think it was a sign I was "thinking into things" too much. Alas, I survived it-even got an A in the class thanks to an overabundance of extra credit; and since I'm a glutton for punishment I'll probably take another course when the Maymester rolls around.

We went to the Dells last week as sort of a wind down from the stress of that class, Jason working most weekends, and to treat ourselves to a small family vacation. The kids had a blast: Alex could ride all the slides and enjoyed them thoroughly, Jason and I took turns 'playing' with him. Laura isn't a huge fan of the water, but she enjoyed floating in the river in the perfect fitting tube and wearing her goggles. . . everywhere, not just in the water. She's been walking around saying "ADVENTURE IS OUT THERE" after the movie UP. And Ainslee is a water bug, my family used to tell me I was swimming before I was walking and I think Ainslee acquired that love-and even a sense of balance and breath. She went down the little slides w/ a huge smile on her face, and walked in the pools like she owned the place. We all enjoyed ourselves, I got to sleep with my husband for 4 nights straight which seems like a modern miracle these days; and the kids managed to get along most of the time.