Saturday, November 23, 2013

A Brief Return

Hi everybody! It's been a while, but I'm back—or rather I'm in the same place I have been all semester, that is, Jordanville. As many of you may know, I'm in my fourth year. As some of you who have been seminarians in Jordanville may know, the fourth year is considered by some to be the year of искушение—temptation. It is said that this is the year in which seminarians have the most work to do, in which they feel the most emotional pressure, and in which they might even wish to leave the seminary, though they are so near the end of their student careers here. I have not been exempt from the infamous troubles which haunt those seminarians in my year.

The first of my искушение seemed harmless but ultimately could have made life very different for me now, and for you, as my readers. During the summer music school this year, I learned of a position in Chicago chanting at a certain parish. I was drawn to this opportunity to make some money to pay back my student loans (from when I attended the University of Hawaii), but ultimately I realized that I had better finish what I'd started here at the seminary before moving on to other, very different occupations in life.

Moreover, there are all the regular temptations to be found around the seminary: the urge to gorge oneself on meat, which develops after protracted periods of deprivation from such fare, the desire to sleep in past 5:30 in the morning (my snooze alarm and I have become well acquainted), and the wish to read through the prayers in the cathedral so fast, at times, that "Gospodi pomiluy" begins to sound like "GOS-pmph, GOS-pmph, GOS-pmph..." But these are the types of challenges that can easily be faced when a person takes the days one at a time, and tries to act sincerely in every part of a daily routine.

So though the fourth year is bound to present me with more challenges and its own unique brand of temptations, I am sure that with your prayers and with the help of my fellow seminarians here I will make it through—and I will be able to lay back and enjoy my senioritis next year in peace!

Ghostwritten by Sophia Urusova, girlfriend. :) Mwahahahaha!