One More Week...

Dear Friends,
I must apologize for once again being an inconstant blogger. To tell the truth, I have been very busy with school, but sometimes, when I'm not so busy, it's easier for me to do something mindless (like watching movie trailers online) instead of blogging. There, confession is over. Speaking of confession, it is the season of Lent, which I am trying to participate in. However, I'm struggling with adding contemplation into my hectic life. I guess the point of Lent is to give up something and use that time to contemplate your faith and specifically Christ's sacrifice. I find that to be very difficult. I keep myself busy with work, hanging out with friends, watching movies, etc. In fact, this Tuesday, I had almost a whole day free and I planned on doing research for an upcoming research paper, but instead I read The Watchmen in anticipation of its movie debut next week. I don't regret this decision, but I regret the ways I waste time or lose focus on my work. Since I'm still confessing, I may as well admit that I have a serious complaining problem.
On a more cheerful note, Wednesday night I went to Greyfriars, a really cool coffee shop downtown, and tried a London Fog. I'm not sure what exactly this drink is, but I think it's a type of latte with Earl Grey tea. But I could be wrong. At any rate it was delicious! I got it because the weather that day reminded me a lot of Oxford, foggy and mysterious, so I thought that London Fog was appropriate. I miss Oxford a lot today. I was even online trying to find a poster of the Radcliffe Camera, but no luck. In my Christ and Culture class today, the professor was discussing Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, which is set in an alternate Oxford in a parallel world, and she showed a video clip with the Radcliffe Camera!!! I immediately felt "homesick". In a way, that whole time in Oxford feels like a dream now. I know that it happened, but it seems so ethereal. I guess life is just like that, things happen and we move on and even though they make a lasting impression, they never seem as real as they did at the time. I remember walking down Pullens Lane one afternoon, carrying my groceries and looking out over the city and thinking, "Someday this won't seem real, so I need to cram as much of it in as possible."
Wow, sorry for the ramble. In other news I had a quiz (mini-test) in Renaissance this week and I think I did really well. This evening I went to reading by Leslie Leyland Fields, who is teaching the Creative Writing: Nonfiction class here. She has a nice way of capturing simple images in a profound way. She seems to have a strong grasp on her identity as a Christian, a woman, and a mother. If you're interested, she has several books out: Surviving the Island of Grace and Parenting is Your Highest Calling and Eight Other Myths. (I may not have those titles exactly right). All in all I am very excited about the weekend and having a chance to get some work done and relax. I'm even more excited about Spring Break, which is only one week away!!! I'm going to be going to West Palm Beach with my mom and my dad to visit my Aunt May, and it makes me so happy every time I think about it! :)

New City Fellowship

I guess confession is good for the soul. Last night, after writing that I wasn't planning on going to church, I started feeling really bad and decided to stay up late and do my laundry so I could have clean clothes for the Sabbath. I also decided to make blueberry muffins so I could eat them on the go the next morning. So I got up today at ten and started getting ready for church, and boy am I glad I did! New City is a very welcoming church, and no matter whether I sit with strangers or not I always feel like I am with the Body of Christ. Today was extra special because it was communion. Pastor Nabors spoke from Matthew 15:10-20, and emphasized our need to surrender our hearts to the power of the Holy Spirit to be cleansed and healed. It was a very worshipful service and as I left, I felt that it was truly good to be in the house of the Lord. Now, unfortunately, I need to buckle down and get some work done. I have a book review and lots of reading to do.

Valentine's Day

Hello all! I just want to wish you all a very happy, though belated Valentine's Day. I spent the majority of today with my roommate Sarah Dollar. I slept in until after noon, which was wonderful! Then Sarah and I went to Greyfriar's, which is a really cool independent coffee house in downtown Chattanooga. We went down there to research and read, since we both have book reviews for our Renaissance class due on Monday. Of course, we didn't get much work done. While we were there we got a chance to hang out with Jonathan and Kristin, which was really fun. I haven't seen Kristin much since we've returned from Oxford, so everytime I see her is very special. Speaking of Oxford, I saw Joy today! Joy was one of my housemates at Oxford. I didn't get to know her all that well, but she had come to Covenant to visit Thomas, Ross, and Colby. It was good/bizarre seeing someone from that time.
This evening Sarah and I destressed and watched "Lars and the Real Girl" and the new "Pride and Prejudice". I have TONS of homework to do, but it was so nice to just relax. The downside is that I did not get a chance to do my laundry and thus do not have clean clothes for church. :( So, that is my confession for today. But please continue to pray for me. Pray that I will be more disciplined in the future. I really want to have Sundays be work-free, but that won't happen unless I work really hard on Friday and Saturday.

Of three hour labs

Praises be to God, I finished Moby-Dick yesterday! 625 pages, but I really did enjoy it and believe it or not, would read it again. It's a book that is profoundly philosophical, as Melville probes the issues of meaning and purpose. His prose is at times gorgeous and Ishmael's narration is witty and contemplative. After finishing the great novel I took a break and watched an episode of "A History of Britain". The episode was "Conquests!" and was all about Edward the Confessor, William of Normandy, and the Battle of Hastings.
But on to today. Today I had a three hour science lab that was actually not that bad. This was due to my group members, both English majors, who joined me in laughing at the absurdities of our lab and our inability to remember any relevant mathematical information that we were supposed to have learned in high school. All I have to say is that high school was three long years ago. Now I'm hunkering down to a long night of homework and research. I started reading Hamlet and Purgatory by Stephen Greenblatt this evening, and I am profoundly thankful to be Protestant. I'll leave the Purgatory to someone else, thank you very much. By the way, if you have not read Shakespeare's Hamlet, you must! It is not debatable, go to the library and get a copy and read it. Then I recommend you watch the Mel Gibson "Hamlet". And while I am sharing advice, listen to Beirut. Just google Beirut, and I think the website is beirutband.com.
Until next time!

I am back!

For those of you (including myself) who thought that this blog had crawled into a dark corner and died, it has not! I've realized that even though I'm no longer at Oxford, I am still "following my literary loves". So from henceforth this blog is not going to be focused solely on amazing adventures in Europe, but on keeping you updated on things happening in my life.
So, what's happening today? Moby-Dick! That's right, I am reading Moby-Dick and am actually almost finished with it. I am reading this for American Novel. Other novels that we have read thus far are: Edgar Huntly by Charles Brockton Brown, Charlotte Temple by Susanna Rowson, and The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I am also currently reading Spenser's Faerie Queene for my Renaissance class. Other than reading, I sleep and eat a little bit and hike when I can! :)
Stay tuned for more chronicles of college life.

Working Backwards 1: Postcards From Italty

Hello everyone! Can you believe that it is already seventh week? Only a week and a half of the Oxford Michaelmas term remains. Then all of us SCIO folks have our ninth week to finish our long essays, then we will break our fellowship, possibly until the end of the world.
However, there are good times to remember and rejoice in. The most recent occurred this weekend. Courtney and I have been planning to go to Rome and the Vatican for quite awhile, and this past weekend we went! We left Oxford at one in the morning and arrived at Stansted Airport outside London at about four Saturday. Our flight left after six and we landed in Rome about two and a half hours later. I did not sleep until we got on the bus from the airport to Termini station in Rome, which took about an hour. Needless to say, I was exhausted. Somehow Courtney and I made it to our convent, which was about five minutes from the Vatican!!!! The Vatican is amazing, and regardless of your religious persuasion, you should go. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We checked in to the convent, which looked like a nice apartment building, and then proceeded to take a nap. At about one in the afternoon we decided to go exploring and find something to eat. We stopped at a neighborhood pizzeria and we each got a pizza margarita. It was so good! Then we took loads of pictures of St. Peter's Square. Words can't describe it, but it's probably the most beautiful architecture ever. I am in love with the Vatican and would love to live there and dust all of the gorgeous statues.
Next we went in search of the Piazza Navona. We cross over this beautiful bridge, Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II, and headed down Corso Vittorio Emanuele II. We eventually made it to the Piazza. It was breathtaking. The beauty of the sculptures and fountains, the composition of the square, and the surrounding architecture, where only further enhanced by the life within the piazza. The living statues, art vendors, and just people--it was profoundly moving. I almost cried, and I never cry. One of my favorite moments occurred when I got to pose with a living statue. Courtney and I got gelato and it was as wonderful as everyone said it would be. Next we wandered over to the Pantheon. Unfortunately, we didn't get to go in, but it was still cool to just be there and see it. We were getting tired, so we decided to head over to the metro stop by the Colosseum. On the way we passed this beautiful building called Complesso del Vittoriano, which Peter tells me the Italians don't like and refer to it as "the wedding cake." But Courtney and I liked it. We wandered past the Roman Forum, which looked particularly ghostly and ancient at night. Then...the Colosseum!!! It's beautiful. So huge and as monstrous as its bloody history, but so gorgeous, even in its crumbling state. We took tons of night shots of it and then we headed back to the convent for a good night's sleep.

Here it is! The moment you've been waiting for!

Slowly, but surely, I am hoping to catch up my blog with the events that are happening in my life. If you look at my last post, you will see that I went to the Imperial War Museum in London on the 2nd of October. That night I pulled an all-nighter, which, for those of you not in college, is when you stay up all night and drink ridiculous amounts of tea and coffee and try to write your papers and edit them before your early morning deadline. In my case, I was writing a 2,000 word essay on the World War II poets and also editing my essay on the literary aspect of the abolitionist movement in England. (Commercial: everyone needs to watch "Amazing Grace.") However, I was not alone, since most of my housemates were doing the same thing. In particular, Kristin, Quinn and I were holed up in the computer room, furiously working away. Yet, this does not mean that we didn't have fun. At one point, probably around three in the morning, Quinn mentioned that he wanted to have a seance. Me being me, decided this was a great idea. So I ran down to my room and got in costume and talked Krisitin into being the spirit that I would summon. I returned to the computer room laden with random props (Statue of Liberty light, religious icon, fruit, jewelry, etc.) and proceeded to hold a mock ceremony complete with hand holding and chanting. Courtney and Quinn were in the computer room, so they got drafted into the the ceremony. Quinn, who originally had this idea, asked, about half way through, whether we were going to go to hell for this. Of course not, I said. Then I proceeded to summon David Hume (on Quinn's special request). However, Kristin thought I was summoning Hahalaba, so she was totally confused. All in all, the whole thing was hilarious and has now evolved into an urban legend in the house.

All of this is a back story to my fall break. After staying up all night and writing, I hurriedly packed a few things for my trip to London. I then scurried into town to drop off my papers and get on the bus. I managed to sleep for about an hour on the bus, which was amazing. I arrived in London around eleven or so. The plan was to meet my cousin Missy at Victoria Station. However, I think I got off a stop too soon, but I made my way to Victoria Station which turned out to be HUGE! I had no idea where Missy was, so I spent almost an hour wandering around and calling my mom on the payphones. Of course, it was around six in the morning back in the states, so when I called my brother Calvin to get him to check my e-mail and relay the information about the hostel that Missy and I would be staying at, he was asleep. But Calvin is an excellent brother and he did get up to check it. Thankfully, Missy showed up right when I was giving him my entirely too complicated password, and he was allowed to go back to bed.

My meeting with Missy was entirely providential and we were both thrilled to have found each other and be in London on an adventure! I can't really remember the order of what we did next, but we collected Missy's bags at the Holiday Inn and transported them to our hostel, Globetrotter's Inn. I think we did something that night, but the whole thing is such a blur that I can't recall what it was. Oh the disadvantages of sleep deprivation! However, I'm pretty sure that we went to the Tate Modern and tried to get Globe tickets. The next day we went to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard. We didn't actually get to see it because of the crowds, but we did get to see the guards walk in and out of the Palace. Then we went on a quest for theatre tickets. This did not work out, but it was very interesting to wander about and see all of the theatres. We then made our way to the National Portrait Gallery and I was very excited to see the portraits of: Henry VIII and his wives, Queen Elizabeth, Mary Queen of Scots, Shakespeare, the Bloomsbury group, and a special exhibit for the World War I poets. If I remember correctly, we then tried to make it to Westminster, but by the time we got there it was closed, so we headed to the Natural History Museum and looked at the the whale skeletons of awhile. Then we went to St. Paul's Cathedral for Evensong. I had promised myself that I would not fall asleep like I did last time, but it was a futile effort. I could tell that I was falling asleep when I thought the priest was talking about shoes! Our next goal was to make it to a famous pub, but we had some difficulties. First, we needed to find a bathroom, but come to find out, almost everything in London (and England) closes after six, so we couldn't find one until we made it to the pub. The pub ended up not being as cool as we thought it would be, so we used the facilities and departed. We settled on The George, which was crowded and lively, but had good food and a cozy backroom. Afterwards, we walked along the Thames and decided to try to watch a movie, but by the time we got to the theatres, all the showings were under way. So, back to the hostel.

The next day was Sunday, and we had decided that since we didn't get to go to a show, we would go on the London Eye. Well, don't you know, it was raining! So instead we went to Westminster for church. The service was lovely and it was wonderful to be in such an ancient and historic place praising God. We were not allowed to poke around, but we did get to go to the museum, which was very interesting. I definitely need to go back to Westminster though. Next we went to Petticoat Lane to check out the markets. I got some Christmas presents for people and some Tchaikovsky. Then it was off to the British Public Library which was incredible! They have an amazing rare texts collection with: a Gutenberg Bible, the Lindisfarne Gospels, a copy of the Magna Carta, a First Folio, notebooks from Lewis Carroll, da Vinci, and Virginia Woolf, and so much more! Missy and I are both bookworms, so we were in book heaven. Really, I highly recommend stopping by this place if you're in London, it's just so cool! We spent a good deal of time here before heading to some more shops. As dusk descended on the city, we decided to try our luck with the Eye and we had success! The Eye is phenomenal! It's a huge Ferris wheel that gives you a perfect panoramic view of London and at night it is absolutely magical. Really, words can't properly describe it, but it was probably my favorite memory.

Monday came with Dawn's rosy red fingers gracefully touching Kew Gardens, our destination of the day. We only had about three hours to spend at Kew, but we made the most of it. Kew is just beautiful and the colors were just starting to turn. The greenhouses were fascinating and huge, wonders of Victorian construction and modern technology. I think my favorites were: the alpine garden, the Japanese garden, and the walkway through the treetops. After Kew we checked out of the hostel and then went to the bus station and got tickets to our separate destinations. This was actually quite a feat, but we managed it admirably. Unfortunately, I had to leave my dear cousin and head back to Oxford, but reunion was in sight and that will be the topic of my next post.