At this stage of my visit here I can notice that things are getting much busier. Currently, I have 21 teaching hours a week plus the various bits and pieces that I am doing at the weekends, plus whatever else I am asked to do here in the seminary.
Last year, when I was here, I was asked to prepare to teach this year two courses: One on the Historical Jesus, and the other on Eschatology (theology of death, life after death, heaven and hell etc). I spent quite a bit of time preparing these courses: on the one hand, lessons must always be prepared; and, on the other hand, no matter how proficient one might be with the language, it is always wiser to have a prepared text, to avoid problems later.
I confirmed this arrangement twice with the seminary, to be sure that we were all on the same hymn sheet - all, however, to no avail. Despite all the planning, when I arrived here in February, I was asked to teach two completely different courses: One called Method in Theology and the other, The History of Theology. Neither of these are courses that I had prepared at all so, since I got here, I have been under pressure to prepare classes and structure the material. Unfortunately, this type of "planning" is not untypical here, in my experience.
Last night I began my lectures in the Lay Institute (INFAP - Institute for the Formation of Pastoral Agents) with a course called Introduction to Theology. I have taught this course before so that is ok but, it turns out, they have no teacher for this evening for a course on Jesus so I will now fill that slot: at least I can use the material I had prepared for use in the seminary but will not now be using.
I particularly enjoy teaching in the Lay Institute as it offers perspectives that are not to be found in the seminary. The students are mostly older than the seminarians, although some are a similar age; they are all either working full-time or else full-time university students (some are housewives); and they all bring a degree of experience to the study of theology that is very enriching.
Currently there are about 40 students, but this number is likely to rise. They are pretty evenly mixed gender-wise and are from a wide variety of backgrounds. The vast majority are coming to the lectures having already completed a full-day's work: this is a huge commitment. They come for a three hour lecture, twice a week which doesn't finish until 9pm. When you consider that most people here (me included) get up at 4.30am, not getting home until after 10pm makes it a very long day for them.
As well as the classes (in the seminary and in INFAP) I use the weekends (mostly) to give talks/ mini retreats on Saturdays, and help out in a parish on Sundays. I have two longer retreats coming up - one in the Augustinian parish which I was looking after recently while the friars were away on retreat, and another for the seminarians in the house where I am living.
A lot of the rest of the time is spent helping students with their course work/ essays/ theses or else hearing confessions, as well as being involved in the ordinary day-to-day life of the seminary.
All in all, the week is quite full but, having come such a long way, that is preferable to sitting around twiddling my thumbs.
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