First Two Weeks at NWC!

Hola! I’ve been so busy I could hardly think these past two weeks… but I think I’ve finally figured out somewhat how to manage my time well and get all the papers, readings, and assignments done! It has been such a blast getting started with classes, meeting SO many new people, and learning from amazing professors.
I have met many music majors and had some very fun conversations with some of them! I am in Counterpoint this semester. Counterpoint is an upper-level music theory course in which you learn how to analyze and write independent melodic lines that work together to also create vertical progressions. I am in a small class (6 total students) and everyone else knows each other already, but I have known the answers to questions and been able to answer a couple that I knew I had correct. My professor, Dr. Danek, has a crazy memory. He plays in class many excerpts from inventions and fugues while we are learning the concepts and tells us important things to remember about each of them.
I have been able to unofficially tutor a music theory I student already this semester, too! I am going to talk to the Alpha Center about tutoring because it’s a wonderful program: students get tutoring free and the tutors are paid by NWC! COOL deal. 🙂
I am in 3 honors classes: Public Speaking, Old Testament History and Literature, and History of Western Civilization. Speech is fairly straight-forward; Rhetoric with Mr. H prepared me well last year. 🙂 OT will be lots of paper-writing, but I think I will be very satisfied with the results at the end of the semester. West. Civ. will be SO much reading. We have a huge course packet filled with articles, plus 6 additional small books to read this semester. Good thing I’ve read some of these already with Mr. D and Mr. Phillips! It will be much easier to skim and remember rather than learn brand new material. In honors classes professors don’t give tests or quizzes, so we just do big projects and write many papers. I personally think this is pretty nice! It will certainly make finals week MUCH easier.
I have visited 2 different churches so far and will visit another new one this week. I really liked Bethlehem Baptist the first week; I would like to go back and visit again maybe next weekend. I was very convicted by Pastor John Piper’s sermon on the end of 2 Timothy 4. For worship they took hymns and “modernized” them (for lack of a better term). I enjoyed that immensely! Last week I went to Real Life Church. It was their Youth Sunday, so their youth praise team led worship and the youth pastor spoke about impacting youth. It was very interesting listening to a sermon like that from this side of high school; every time that I remember, I was IN middle or high school when hearing sermons like that. It was a strange feeling to realize that I am not one of them any longer and I now have a different role to play in impacting youth. I have the same role to play in college life that I used to in high school, but it looks different. That is something I have been thinking about and praying about a lot this week: what does it look like to impact college students? High schoolers? Middle Schoolers?? Wow… that requires some more thought.
Please be in prayer for a new friend of mine, Wade Weeldryer. I have not talked to him very much, but he is in two of my classes. His mother just died on Thursday evening from battling a very painful cancer. While his family is rejoicing that she is no longer in pain and that she is with her Savior, they are still grieving her loss.
You can also pray for the spiritual life of the students on this campus. I have seen some on FIRE for our LORD, but I have also seen some who need Him so badly…. it breaks my heart to see them searching for fulfillment in the wrong places. I want to be a light here; I don’t know what that looks like or how God might use me, but I trust that He can and He will, if I let Him. And I WANT Him to use me, even if I’m not “popular”…. I’ve never been popular, so no worries there. 🙂 God has given me an urgency for this campus; may He bring this to action here at Northwestern College. Go Eagles! Go Jesus!! 😀 Thank You for LIFE.

Posted by AJ Petersen on September 8, 2012

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