Updates

Hello world. I'm back again. Sorry for the long absence. Grad school has been eating my lunch lately, so I've been concentrating on that. Here's what new:

1. Another semester of school has started. I'm taking 14 hours, which in grad school terms means I have no free time and no life. My classes: Baptist Heritage (surprisingly better than I expected), Pastoral Ministry (even though I'm a *gasp* girl), Encountering the Biblical World, Introduction to Urban Missions, Exegeting the City for Ministry (my group is concentrating on the women that work in the French Quarter), Spiritual Formation II.

2. I survived Carnival Season in New Orleans. For those that don't know, Mardi Gras is a two to three week affair in the Big Easy complete with parades that close off major streets and crazy tourists that don't know how to drive. Winning the Super Bowl just made Carnival that much crazier.

3. As mentioned earlier, the Saints won the Super Bowl. This normally wouldn't count as a major event in my normal life, but living in New Orleans makes a difference. For one night, I cheered against Peyton and joined the party after they won. I was also one of the 800,000 people that went to the Saints Parade. (This number is amazing because current estimates say there are only 330,000 people who live in the New Orleans city limits and the metro area is a little more than 1 million people.)

4. My best friend had a baby! It's hard to sufficiently express my joy from a thousand miles away, but I've been beaming with pride for days.

5. I've gone vegetarian for Lent. I'm doing surprisingly well do far. Okay, so there was that one night that I ate catfish. But it was free and the restaurant they took me to doesn't know the meaning of vegetarian. I'm pretty sure Jesus still loves me :)