So, I'm back in Alexandria after being in Mississippi for a few weeks, and am very happy to have had no homework for the past couple of nights. Technically, I have two books on the historical Jesus to read before classes start in Feb. and there are lots of things I could read that I didn't last semester, plus things I could read to get a head start on the new semester, but there's nothing to read for the next few days, which is a huge relief after months of lots and lots of work.

Even when I was home, I had to get three books read and a paper written for my January term class that started yesterday, I was working on a project for work study, and I was trying to see lots of family and friends that I've greatly missed during my time away. While it was wonderful to be home in Vicksburg and Oxford, it is nevertheless a great gift to be back in Alexandria with little to do for a few days.

My current weeklong class is at Wesley Theological Seminary's downtown campus and is on the topic of church leadership. It's actually been pretty good, with lots of (what seems like) very practical information. It's offered as part of the Washington Theological Consortium (at VTS, we're required to take at least 2 hours of consortium credit), so besides the resident United Methodists, there are lots of Baptists and a few nondenominational people. It's fun to hear everyone "amen" occasionally but not so fun to get bogged down in a discussion based on very literal interpretation of Paul. I felt kind of bad for the teacher, who gave her best effort to get these students to see beyond their kind of narrow interpretation, and to steer us back to the actual topic.

Also, it's really kind of fun to be in DC for the day and see all the movers and shakers moving and shaking around the city. And, it's nice to come home in the evenings to the seminary, where it's fairly quiet, since only about half my classmates are back. Many of the rest of them are in Myanmar, Jerusalem or the Dominican Republic right now, and though I didn't travel this January, I very much hope to get to go somewhere with my classmates next year.