New Year Entry

Journal Entry #3

Journal Entry #3

New Year Entry

Greetings all! I hope everyone enjoyed their Holiday season. In this post I will be going over two main topics: starting school and what I’m currently reading. 

So, first up to share is what I decided to study/ pursue. I decided to pursue an English Degree from Liberty University. I have three main reasons for choosing this path. The first reason has to do with the fact that I struggled in my English classes in high school. Mainly due to my own lack of effort or care at that time. I hope to develop my lack of skill in this area, along with better strengthening my newfound love “reading”.  I believe this will help me to better understand, go more in-depth and have more edifying conversations with the author of the books I read, along with the people I encounter each day.  I hope to gain better skills as a writer as well. The reason I settled with attending Liberty University, is due to work and class schedule conflicts that arose where I hoped to attend, (Bellarmine or WKU) so this limited me to attending online programs. I chose Liberty because I knew it was a Christian School. During my time in the Navy, I had a fellow sailor who spoke very highly of the school, and the fact that Liberty is very Military friendly. Liberty seems to be a good place to earn a degree along with catering better to my schedule. My first semester courses consist of English Literature II, Survey of literary history, Shakespeare, and Survey of Old and New Testament. 

Given That I’ll start classes January 15^th, I will have to start toning back on the books I’m reading through, to better focus on the course curriculum. Given the subjects I’m taking there should be some overlap of interest. For the time being here are the books I’m currently reading: First up Don Quixote by Cervantes, the story so far is really quite funny and enjoyable to read. Seeing how he is trying to be a knight, and projecting the chivalrous stories and portrayals from the books he’s read into reality is a joy to read. My next book I’m reading through is one I take to work with me as a book to have around for when I have down time. It is “How to speak, how to listen”. As someone who struggles to articulate myself with others or easily misunderstood, I felt as though this would be a great choice to read, and help me to build up confidence in this area. The final book to showcase is a book on the devout life: Introduction to the devout life, by St. Francis de Sales. I dedicate this book to a special portion of time, before doing Evensong ( Evening Prayer) as a spiritual reading time. I am also following along with Ascension Press’s podcast called Catholic Classics. The book so far has shed a lot of light on what true devotion is and what is not devotion, but more of a show or an appearance.

I hope this sheds a little light as to how my new year is going and what I have been focusing on. This year I plan on hitting the ground running; really digging into these studies and learning all I can. For anyone who would like to comment or share how their new year is going. it would be a delight to connect. If anyone has advice or tips they would like to share; that would help to navigate an English Degree, I’m all ears. 

God Bless you all with many blessings this coming year,

Austin