The Last Exam of Fall 2022

I spent time reviewing for my Church History I final exam, although it was open book-open notes.  And thank goodness it was.  I thought I knew all the information, but the objective section of the final exam drilled deep into the depths of particulars.

We had 53 multiple choice questions, and an hour and a half to take the objective part.  For the essay part, which we could take separately, thank goodness, we had the choice of 4 questions, giving us a wide choice of topics to address--but we only had to choose one.  We had an hour and a half to write that part.

I did the objective part late in the morning yesterday, while I was still feeling rather fresh.  It was grueling.  Even when I was fairly sure of the answer, I looked up each one.  I am grateful to a small group member in another class who told us about his experience putting all the weekly lecture notes into a single Word document, which made it searchable.  I did that, and thank goodness I did.  I didn't end up with much extra time once I was finished.  I got a 51 out of 53.  I missed three questions, but got all the extra credit questions.

I took a break, took a shower, ate some lunch, and then settled into essay writing mode.  There was a question about church heresies, one question about art/architecture, one question about 3 important female figures, and one about monastic pioneers.  You might think I would choose the question about women, but nope.  I went with monastic pioneers.

I felt fairly wiped out after writing the essay, but I felt good about the essay.  I hit "submit" and went for a walk.  I spent the rest of the day watching the mid 1990's version of Little Women with Winona Ryder.  In some ways, it's a perfect Christmas movie.  I made this Facebook post:  "Today's stop on Kristin's tour of Christmas movies: "Little Women," the one from the mid-90's with Winona Ryder. Jo has just sold her hair, and Amy says, "Your one beauty!" And I'm thinking of the scenes that revolve around a hair cut in "Fleabag" almost 2 centuries later. And I'm loving Marmee's hard-earned wisdom. Come for the Christmas bits, stay for the feminism!"

I went to bed early and fell into a much deeper sleep than I've had in a long time.  It was the first night in ages that I didn't dream about all the seminary work I was doing.  I didn't wake up extra early worrying about all the grading I have to do or the seminary work that needs to be completed.

Soon, I head to Williamsburg for a day with my parents, including seeing them in a Christmas Chorale Concert.  It will be a delightful way of settling into the one time a year when I don't have work piling up:  grades are turned in, seminary work is complete, and I don't have a full-time job making demands.  I won't always be this lucky, but this year I am.  Let me settle in and enjoy this good fortune.