Thinking About the Future . . . Again

Today we'll be traveling from Huntington to Lewisburg to attend Mary Ann's sister's graduation from Med School.  Cari will soon be starting her internship across the river in Ashland, KY (if she hasn't started already--I'm not sure how that works).  This graduation, combined with my brother Aaron's ongoing attempt to get into the PhD program in Communications at Ohio U, has really made me think about my future.  I know, I know.  Posts about 'my future' comprise about two-thirds of the writing I do on here, but bear with me one more time.

Cari's finishing up her DO, Aaron's (hopefully) about to start a PhD.  I'm working on my MDiv, which is a good, comprehensive degree, but I still worry over the possibility of academic work.  Specifically, I worry that I won't get into a decent school.  I know God is in charge of what happens, but I also know that I'm a sinner who can easily mess things up.  God doesn't automatically remove the negative consequences of my sin, after all.  I have to battle that hardened habit of laziness that keeps me from really writing that excellent research paper, or studying hard for that test.

Even if I do conquer my lazy habits, what about the past?  I can no longer control that I did not go to a prestigious school.  I don't think that's a necessarily a killer problem, but if a guy with a degree from Duke and a guy with a degree from Tri-State Bible College are competing, the Duke guy has the edge.  I'm hoping to balance that out a bit with my GRE scores.  Aaron is my model there.  He really busted his butt and got the score he needed for his program and more.  I admire that, and I've already asked his advice on how to go about it.

I'm excited, though, because I'm going to take an independent study with Dr. Anthony Bradley in the spring.  He advised me to do this because he said the papers assigned in typical classes at CTS aren't designed to show doctoral potential.  He said that he took independent study courses to see if he had what it took, so that's what I'm going to do.  That means extra reading and writing, but I, along with Dr. Bradley, basically get to pick the topic.  Pretty cool.  If I can parlay that paper into a sparkling writing sample, I will have done all I can.

Where does this leave the fiction writing I've been harping on lately?  The same place its always been:  one of a few options.  I intend to keep pursuing fiction hard and also pursue PhD studies.  As Dad would say, you always need a back up plan.  But let's just ignore the fact that both of my plans are risky and have a high possibility of falling through.