Routine

Now that the semester has started, I already feel like I am settling into a bit of a routine at the Sydney Uni chaplaincy. I will basically have a normal work schedule there; it's open from 9-5 and I try to get there as close to 9 as I can (sometimes the buses can be little unpredictable) and leave around 4:30 so that I can make it home before it gets really dark.

I'm going to be auditing a Christology course at Notre Dame for the next four weeks, which meets on Wednesdays from 4:30-7:30, so that starts tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to that. School is a bit more fun when you aren't actually being graded...

Today I spent a bit of the morning cleaning and rearranging furniture at the JPII center with Rita and Beth. Almost everything they have there is second hand, but it seems like they get a pretty steady stream of donations, so little by little they are getting together a good set up. Tomorrow there is going to be a great filing cabinet re-organization product because some new ones got dropped off today.

Rita Azzi is probably the one that keeps things going at the chaplaincy. She's on top of everything and has been working there the longest, so she knows what needs to get done. She's really kind, and the students just love her.

Beth McNamara just graduated from Notre Dame last year and began working full time at the chaplaincy at the beginning of this year. She seems really good at putting together projects and having new ideas. Because she's the same age as many of the students, she has a good eye for the types of programs from which students will benefit the most.

I spent a while today working on a promotional booklet for the World Youth Day Scholarship program that the chaplaincy is going to be offering starting next semester. They will "hire" two students to volunteer for four hours a week at the chaplaincy, and in return, each student will receive $2,500 toward a ticket to World Youth Day. Many parishes are offering similar sponsorships, and I was modifying the parish literature to meet the needs of the chaplaincy program. The booklet had been created on Adobe InDesign, a program with which I am not particularly familiar, but I muddled my way through with the help of Sr. Mary Barbara. Beth has been working on this for several days already, and she had already spent most of the time figuring out the frustrating parts of the program. Sr. Mary Barbara and I just worked out the final kinks, but boy was Beth happy to see that project done.

I also got to spend a lot of time getting to know some of the students. There is this one boy named Lawrence with a head of curly red hair who is just hilarious. In the afternoon, I went to a meeting of the Catholic Society of St. Peter (CSSP), the official Catholic student society on campus. They were planning some of their semester events, several of which should take place while I am still here. CSSP sponsors "Max and Edith Days," named for Maximilian Kolbe and Edith Stein (a Carmelite nun who was killed at Auschwitz), which are basically separate day events for male and female bonding. The men are going to play paintball, but the women were still a bit up in the air about their activity. There was a lot of talk about having high tea in a park and following it with some sport (like ultimate frisbee!), which I thought sounded pretty fun. I didn't hear exactly what the purpose/origin of these days are besides the bonding, but I'm sure I will hear more as they approach.