Two days away from starting classes for the fall, Learner spent a majority of yesterday registering and scheduling, getting all his ducks in a row, and pretending to be in complete control of life (if only in his head and on paper). It felt good, he says.
Taking 14 hours this semester, studying 20 and working 19 per week, preparing and teaching a Sunday School class for 10 weeks beginning this Sunday, and trying to be of some help to Mrs. Learner as she homeschools the kids while taking and studying for 5 hours of class herself, it's going to be a full fall.
Last night, Learner had a breakthrough with the children at bedtime. Desperate for a change, he started reading The Chronicles of Narnia to them and they loved it, his oldest (who has been causing most of the trouble lately) especially. He read to them (all four, in their beds, in the same room) three chapters (about 45 pages/minutes worth), and they were, for the most part, enthralled, he says.
Personally, Learner says it was a much-needed moment of relief and joy of actually feeling like a father again, and he's hoping to make this part of their routine in the new fall schedule.
The other major schedule adjustment this fall is Learner's wake and sleep times. He's always historically done better "early to bed, early to rise" (in college, he and his roommate used to go to sleep at 9 p.m., getting up at 6 a.m., which was somewhat underhead of at the undergraduate level). Thus, he's making a point to shoot for sleep by 9:30 each night in order to rise at 5 a.m. each morning.
(Note: For some reason, he called about an hour ago (3:30 a.m.) to tell me all this, saying he was up because he had to "take out" a loud cricket that made it indoors. Afterward, he couldn't get back to sleep, which was okay, he said, because he fell asleep by 9:45 p.m. after reading ahead for his beginning homiletics class and feels fine.)
"I got the cricket," he says. "Congratulations," I tell him.
Anyway, Learner says that if he gets to bed early, he thinks he can make it; if not, he has no idea how else to get done what he needs to and still maintain some semblance of time with the Lord (not to mention keep hold of his personal sanity as well).
"Now is not the time to be passive in planning. 'Seize the day' and all that crap," he says.
In addition to the night's cricket-killing exercise, he checked his email and got word he actually passed his beginning Greek class (no small thanks to the given extra credit), and is officially heading for Greek exegesis, which he registered for by faith yesterday.
He's motivated (now/again). Help him, God. Be his motivation.
