Overwhelmed

This past week has been quite overwhelming. I had such a fantastic last weekend down in Long Beach, I was able to bond with a couple of my guys and meet tons of new, cool people!

But after the awesomeness of the retreat, I was pulled back into reality. I had a midterm on Monday, that didn't go all that great, and then was swamped with work and bible study and other engagements. Before I knew it, it was Friday, and I'm was totally not ready for my three midterms coming up this week.

Now its Sunday, and unfortunately I'm falling in that same predicament. On Tuesday I have a midterm at 8am, for my history of photography class, which I have to have 80 slides memorized by year and photographer. Then at 3:30, I have a second midterm for my Gender Communication class. I'm feeling fairly confident for that one, as I've outlined all the lectures and done the readings. Then Wednesday I have my Persuasion Comm class... which is going to be pretty difficult I think.

I've been falling into the pit lately... thinking that even if I fail to adequately prepare for my midterms God will still love me unconditionally. Yes, this is totally true and it really has transformed my life. However, I am using that as an excuse not to study very well... which (to me) isn't a good thing. I'm using God's unconditional love for me as an excuse to do poorly.

My housemates have this philosophy and I always scoffed at them last year when they would be content with just barely passing classes. Maybe they have a point, maybe I'm too prideful in my schoolwork and God is trying to humble me a little bit. Or maybe they're using God as an excuse too? Did Jesus die on the Cross for us to just do the minimum to scrape by in our responsibilities? In my opinion, I think we're not bringing him glory if we're using that as an excuse.

There's a lot I don't know and that I am unsure about, but what I do know is that I'm going to have to kick it into high gear tomorrow with no screwing around.

I wish I had more time; I miss blogging and I've taken some awesome, awesome pics over the past week. I'll try and post them sometime in the coming week. Freedom for me is Weds afternoon. Then after that it's Halloween Time in Isla Vista. The Craziness beckons...