Week 13: Going Retro

Could it be? The last blog post of the semester? My, how time flies. Finals are but a week away, and that means it’s time to start reviewing – taking out the books, making study guides, doing practice problems, and all that jazz. It also means that it’s a good time to review the semester itself.

This kind of blogging was a whole new experience for me. My freshman seminar had a blog, but we mostly just replied in the comments section to whatever our professor’s question was for the week. My English class last year had a blog, but that whole idea died out a couple weeks into the semester.

This is the first time that I’ve ever written my own blog. Which isn’t to say that blogging was foreign to me. I’ve read my fair share of blogs, and tried my best to capture their friendly, informal tone while still maintaining my own specific brand of quirky, borderline anachronistic style. I hope I’ve done a satisfactory job for y’all (i.e., those who are still reading, which may just be Fr. Dziak). I know I’ve certainly had fun with it.

Well, sometimes it was fun. Other times it was a little tedious, and it was often emotional. I don’t mean to say that I typed these up while bawling my eyes out each week, but a lot of the questions really made me think. I honestly wouldn’t be able to tell you what caused it all, but some combination of the class, this blog, and my never-ending academics has really thrown my worldview into turmoil. That is, with each passing day I grow less and less sure of what I once believed in.

I swear that’s less melodramatic than it sounds. I guess my world hasn’t been toppled so much as expanded – much like I imagine the Europeans felt when they discovered the Americas and realized that they weren’t the majority on Earth. I kind of like the feeling, though. When nothing is certain, it opens up all new opportunities that would have once seemed impossible. I just wish it didn’t affect my studies.

I would definitely say that the posts I most enjoyed writing about were the ones where I used my imagination to visualize them. You know, like the one about Tamales Point, or like last week’s on the 40-year-old me. Maybe that’s just how I am. As a science major, I’m so used to writing lab reports and other technical papers that I just find it much more engaging to write about something I can feel as well as know. I guess Ignatius was on to something when he advocated a balance of heart and head.

Don’t get me wrong, the other questions were plenty stimulating. I definitely believe that it was good to have so much self-reflection. But I found myself trying to explain why I felt a certain way or the cause of my actions, as such questions naturally elicit. It was those subjects that didn’t need explanation which I found most telling when I went back and read them. I didn’t need to EXPLAIN WHY; I just had to DESCRIBE HOW (Dr. Kargol’s Intro to Quantum class FTW).

Maybe that’s the key. I could write straight from the heart in the moment, and then look back on it with a clear head and analyze it, instead of trying to do both at the same time and just muddling things up.

But now I’m just rambling. In closing, I would definitely say that blogging about Ignatius Loyola, the Jesuits, and all they teach was a valuable experience in my spiritual development. Like I said at the beginning, I’ve stored away several of Ignatius’s beliefs into my collection of ideas that form my worldview. And I’m definitely glad to have the addition.

I know Fr. Dziak had a hard time keeping up with all these blogs – considering that nearly the entire class elected to have one – but I do feel like it’s an indispensable tool for one’s spiritual development in this class if one takes it seriously. That said, determining how deeply one reflects with these kinds of questions is so subjective that it becomes almost impossible to accurately judge who’s taking the process seriously.

Maybe keep it as an option, but, in addition, have a shorter paper (like half the length of the final paper alone) due at the end reflecting on the blogging experience? I’m not sure. I think it should be available, but not so seemingly simple that people will want to take it as the easy way out.

I hope everyone enjoyed my silliness. If you hear from me again, it probably won’t be on this blog. But now that I’ve gotten a taste for it, and with summer on the horizon, you may find me blogging elsewhere. I’ll see y’all on the other side of Finals. Until then:

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will – all that I have and call my own. You have given it all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace. That is enough for me.