The Class that Almost Wasn't...

So, the blog. Hasn't really caught on yet, in case you didn't notice. Hee hee. As of today, I am officially done with my freshman year of college! And, as a bonus, I think I might actually have something worth blogging about! So here goes...

One of my classes this semester was PHI 1308-Introduction to Ethics. Yes, people, those first three letters stand for PHILOSOPHY. As in, sit around and talk about Aristotle and Plato and how to be great thinkers like them. Not exactly my cup of shaken iced green tea. But being as how my major has no degree requirements, and being as how I only had 14 credit hours when planning my Spring schedule (in the oh-so-Springy month of October, thank you very much early registration) and being as how I am required by this magic major of magnificence to carry at least 15 hours a semester, I really really needed a 3 hour course that was offered at 9 AM MWF. So I did what any rational person would do. I selected every last department in the online course catalog and went through every. single. course. Baylor offered in that time slot for Spring '08. Here's a sampling of what I came up with:

-Financial Accounting? Erm...not so much.
-American Journalism History...sounds fascinating but I think I'm going to pass.
-Electrical Circuit Theory...well of course. How did I ever miss that in my pre-physical therapy course requirements? *insert sarcasm here. And really after everything else I ever say.*

You get the picture. The pickings, they were slim. But lo and behold (I love that phrase), there sat Intro to Ethics, MWF 9-9:50, Professor X. "Well," said my mom (who was of course helping me pick out my courses because, hello, did you really expect me to act like a grown-up adult person, capable of making her own decisions? I didn't think so.) "Ethics is good for a medical-type person. What if you have to decide whether to pull the plug on a terminal patient? Or what if a father's one chance to live is to transplant his adopted daughter's ex-husband's kindey? Wouldn't you need to know what to do then?" Well, yes, Mom, I guess I would need to know what to do then. And I definitely don't think anyone has been watching too much ER/Grey's Anatomy/House lately. Nooo sir. Anyway. So I signed up for PHI 1308, mostly just to fill the void in my schedule with a class that, surely, couldn't be that hard. I would be fine.

Fast forward a few months. First semester is over, and it's Christmas time. I must have told five hundred people what my class schedule looked like for next semester (Well, really it just looks like a sheet of printing paper with a fancy grid and notes like "Room 206-up the stairs and to the right!" because Jennifer is so not at all OCD or afraid of getting lost on the way to class and being inexcusably late on the first day and making a bad impression and I THINK I AM HAVING AN ANEURYSM JUST TYPING ABOUT IT! She's totally not like that.) Anyway, my answer went something like this: "Well I'm signed up for intermediate Spanish, which I'm pretty excited about, and Biology, Religion, and...Ethics...but I'm probably going to drop that because I'm really not so much a philosophy person."

So I get into class on the first day. (On time and totally not lost, thank you very much.) The prof is a young grad student who made me laugh and seemed to actually like philosophy? Weird. But he did enough in the first few weeks to convince me not to drop the class. We read Geach, Mill, Kant, Jane Austen (loves it), and Aristotle. And y'all, something crazy happened. I actually liked philosophy. It wasn't all sitting around talking about old dead guys and what they thought. It was practical, useful stuff that answered questions I'd always had, and then brought up a whole mess of new ones to think about. Yeah. Now, I'm not going to be a philosophy major. Sorry. But you know what? I ended up with a 98 in that class. A 98! In a college course! Not that it was insanely challenging, but still. That's pretty dang good, if I do say so myself, ever so humbly. And you know that Spanish class I was so "excited" about? Yeah. My first B in college, frustrations without end, and the biggest college disappointment yet.

The thing that really stands out here to me (besides the fact that, I PULLED A 98 IN A COLLEGE CLASS!!!!) is that God really does work in crazy ways. I mean, yes, I know this. I could cite a bazillion stories from my life and the lives of people I know to show you this. And maybe this isn't even a really good one. But y'all, I totally thought I knew what was going to go down in this course. I would hate it, grit my teeth, and make it through, hoping that it wouldn't ruin my GPA (which totally isn't important, just that it's tied to my major and grad school and every last one of my scholarships...). But God took it and did something totally awesome. So many times I shut the door on God, put Him in a box, or whatever lingo-catchphrase-churchy word you would like to use. I like to think that I know exactly how things are going to happen and every detail of what my life is going to look like. Maybe when I do that, I'm missing out on a great semester with a really cool prof, where I learn some important things. Maybe when I'm looking for my awesome Spanish class to make my day at the end of the semester, He really wants to use the Ethics course that I signed up for on a whim. Just a thought. Or two or seventy-three.

Maybe this blogging thing will stick after all.

"'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the LORD." -Isaiah 55:8