Friday, January 16, 2009

First Night of Grad School

I started graduate school last night. My first class is called, Sociocultural Foundations in Counseling. I was really excited and had a lot of ideas of what it would be like. When I arrived I realized it would be nothing like I thought. It wasn't awful but it wasn't great either. I really thought there would be more people just like me...not that I think I'm wonderful or anything. I just assumed there would be several compassionate Christians. I live in pretty much a Christian bubble. I work at my church, I live 6 blocks away, I am next door to a Christian university...I honestly do not have any friends who are Christians and a large majority of them are Nazarenes! I've prayed over the last year that God would bring non-Christian friends into my life. I wasn't prepared for what that would look like.

One girl who cusses at least twice when she speaks, the one guy in my class that spoke about kissing another guy, a black girl who doesn't like other black people.....the list goes on and on. This will be a great experience for me, I'm sure of it. I know that it's good to be uncomfortable in these situations because it makes you grow...at least that's my prayer.

I do love the readings and my professor. She is very eccentric which makes it fun. She's probably in her early 50s and she has a streak of purple hair. She's not real organized and she's really laid back. She definitely wants us to come to our own understanding of Sociocultural backgrounds which I like.

Our first assignment was to write a one-page paper on who we are and where we've come from...what are our sociocultural foundations. I had never really thought about a lot of those things. My paper was about being a white, heterosexual, female in a middle-class family. I realized that I'm not a grateful for my privileges as I should be and I'm really looking forward to learning more about myself and why I am the way I am.

God, Use me at OCU. Teach me and give me your wisdom and discernment. I want to a light for YOU!

3 comments:

Mariko Marie said...

I'm so proud of you, Jaci, and I can't wait to see your influence to your classmates. Just by being who God made you to be, I know you will make an impact in other's lives.

Anonymous said...

Jaci's changing the world and I get to watch.

Rad.

lenamarie said...

I'm so excited for this new experience for you Jaci. It'll be interesting for you & I pray that you will have an awesome Jaci-Bounds-impact on these peeps who need Jesus. I know you'll be a light in the dark there. It's always funny when God answers prayers...like we didn't really expect Him to answer or He answers them in ways we didn't think of.