Uncle! Uncle! UNCLE! UNCLE! UNCLE!!!!!

Ya’ll.  Ya’ll.  Ya’ll.  I don’t know what the freak I was thinking when I made a foolish vow to blog everyday in 2011.  It’s only January 12 & I have all ready missed three days.

I give up.

UNCLE!

Release me, please from my tomfoolery.

Now, for those keeping up, I am spending two weeks in Holland doing intensives towards my MDiv degree.  It’s been impossibly difficult.

Last night all the distance-learning students of the female variety got together to comisserate hang out and I gave them a word image to describe how I feel.

In prison, sometimes inmates are emotionally tortured by being asked to move a pile of dirt from one location to another.

Doesn’t sound like emotional trauma to me, right?  Who doesn’t mind a bit of hard labor?

The trauma comes in when the next day the inmates are asked to move that same pile of dirt back to it’s original location.

Each day they are asked to do that same thing.  There is satisfaction in knowing that you are contributing to something.  Even greater satisfaction when you can see the completion of your work.  And even greater still satisfaction when you love what you are a part of.

But, monotonous and pointless hard labor causes grown men to cry.

I cried this morning.

I love a lot of things about getting an advanced degree.  As a working, young Mama of two kids 5 & under I feel particularly empowered in obtaining a degree that in American history has been primarily reserved for men.

But learning freegan Ancient Hebrew?  Well, let’s just say it makes me feel like an inmate being asked to move a big pile of dirt from one location to another and back again.

Why?  Because I don’t suspect I’ll use Hebrew to create sermons in my life as a Minister of the Gospel.  Even if I do, there are amazing computer programs out there to help me appreciate and use the intricacies of Hebrew when studying the Old Testament of the Bible.

UNCLE!

When I expressed this last night, one of the Professors -who shall remain un-named- said, “you know what?  Just get through this hoop.  Just survive.  Don’t let 3 Hebrew classes keep you from finishing this degree.”

Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.

It is a hoop, to me at least.

So, I’ll keep going.

But not blogging once a day.

Boy, that was a dumb idea.