Snippets of Life of a Faculty Member in Seminary During the Long Vacation

The long year end vacation has officially started last week. The seminary campus is rather quiet now, except for a handful of thesis writing and postgraduate students who stay back during the vacation to utilise the library for their research.


But what about the faculty? The general perception among the students is that during the long vacation, the lecturers are very free. But is this true?

Let's have some snippets of my life in the seminary for this week:

Monday, 27 October
The nation celebrated Deepavali, so it was a public holiday. But I returned to the office to work on my preparation for the upcoming Doctor of Ministry module on 'Advanced Hermeneutics and Homiletics' that I will be co-teaching with my colleague in March 2009, but details of which would be given out to the candidates at the DMin orientation to be held on November 3. So I needed to get ready the course outline, bibliography and the reader to be distributed to the students during the orientation next week. In the night, a group of students came to my office to chill out and had some 'ciku and coffee/tea' party.

Tuesday, 28 October
A group of us spent the entire morning in a meeting finalising the details of the Southeast Asia Edinburgh 2010 Missions Conference to be hosted by STM in June 2009. From the afternoon right up to the night, I continued to work on the Doctor of Ministry module and compiled the reader to be distributed next week. A student volunteered to help me make copies of the articles to be included in the DMin reader, whose timely assistance was greatly appreciated.

Wednesday, 29 October
Continued to work on the Doctor of Ministry module right up to the afternoon. Finally completed it, and arranged for the 1000-page reader to be photocopied. Then in the evening, I graded a paper submitted by one of my postgraduate Master of Theology students. In between these tasks, I reviewed several new applications for our next academic year intake. In the midst of busyness, I still managed to have lunch with one of our students. It was good to catch up with him.

Thursday, 30 October
Today will be another packed day. I will be conducting an oral comprehensive examination for one of our Master of Theology students, followed by a series of interviews with four potential Doctor of Ministry and Master of Theology applicants. Then I will be rushing back home to Kuala Lumpur in the evening to take my mother to her doctor's appointment.

Friday, 31 October
I will be on leave today - not to have a break but to take my father to his doctor's appointment. This will be another long day of waiting in the hospital. The good news is that I will have some time to catch up with my reading in the waiting room.

Saturday, 1 November
It will be back to work in the church office....I will be dead by Saturday night. Good thing I do not have anymore Sunday preaching engagements until December.

Is there any free time for me?