you know you're a senior when...

...you start to feel wearied by the people and atmosphere of a place.

i remember the back-to-school dance my senior year of high school. my friends and i wandered around much, danced little, and observed the drama of the younger crowd. girls crying because their crushes danced with someone else, guys shrugging off their girlfriends because they really didn't want to be there in the first place, groups of friends more interested in setting each other up than in just hanging out with each other. my friends and i had an awakening: all this was so very high school, and we were tired of it - perhaps even beyond it. (though for all of us, college brought us its own series of tears, boys, friendship dynamics, and general drama.)

i am now a senior here at PTS. for two years i have been humbled by very smart people. and for two years i have endured a) smart people who ask smart questions in front of full classrooms just to make themselves sound smart, and b) not-as-smart people who ask smart-sounding questions in front of full classrooms just to make themselves sound smart. i am wearied of people who take advantage of the education system to make themselves look good, even if they don't realize that they are doing it. i watch students try to cozy up to professors during the first week of class, who volunteer inappropriately in order to gain favor, who pursue outside reading for their own gain (which is fine), but then choose to publicly puff themselves up by referring to it during classtime, when it would be more appropriate to discuss it with a professor outside of class.

i do my work (most of it), and i know that i could do more. i understand what i am learning, and i know that i could understand more. i do not claim to have excelled in any subject, but i feel that i have certainly learned much.

i do feel put to shame by people who honestly love learning, who take full advantage of everything this seminary has to offer, and i admire people who have the interest and credentials to desire the pursuit of a ph.d in the near future. but those people don't bother me. they are here, love academia, and excel.

i cannot stand the juvenile one-upping that runs rampant in many of my classes. there is no merit to speaking in order to hear oneself speak, nor is there merit to asking bogus questions simply to show off knowledge. i am reminded of a guy with whom i went to high school: he had skipped two grades, and so, while he was incredibly smart, he also lacked the social graces to know what to do with his intelligence. as a 12 year old high school freshman, the best he could find to do with himself was to kiss up to his teachers and to show off his intelligence - hoping to make friends by impressing us. instead, he became the butt of jokes and annoyances. he was well-meaning, and we knew that, which is why we never actually had a problem with him. but he still got on our nerves.

this is the sort of juvenility that seems out of place in graduate school, especially in a place where at least some of us (if not most of us) are here to become pastors, to serve the church, and to grasp a greater knowledge of the Bible and theology in order to be better ministers to the Christian community. i wish there were two m.div tracks: one for ministry, one for further academic study. i am tired of having to defend (at least to myself) my own priorities, where school is one of many things important to my life.