2008-10-26 - 11:24 p.m.
Well, I've been a long time out of touch with this blog, but never fear, gentle reader- I've not been mouldering away doing school work the whole time! Just most of it. Yes, the good old books are starting to pile up, the essays are begging to be written (now, while they have a chance of turning out decently), and the greek alphabet is sitting the in the corning hoping quietly that I'll start to memorize it.
But enough of the dreary rigors of seminary life. In the past three weeks I've managed to get out of town twice, which is what I call a very good average. Luckily this week was reading break, so I was able to take my jaunts abroad, and still stay on track.
It was three weeks ago that I went to Stuart McLean in Seattle. It was a wonderful show - he's hilarious, and he read two new stories, and one that was old, but I hadn't heard. A bit part of his show is the music- he always has musical guests, often smaller artists that he's discovered somewhere. There were three with him at the show- a pianist, a jazz musician, and two girls with guitars. The girls were very good, and I bought their cd.
Aside from the show, Seattle was nice. I'd never been there before, so went down to the wharf, as I'm told you must do, and looked at the skyline, and all those things that you should admire in a city. We weren't there long- got in Friday night, and went home Saturday, since it was Thanksgiving weekend.
Thanksgiving itself was spent with a potluck with other people who live in the building. Quite a good meal, and someone brought along some turkey, although there was a problem, and it was late. There was a stretch where I thought that I would be having my first turkey free Thanksgiving!
As I said, it was reading week at the school this week. It's early, compared to other schools, but our terms ends quite early, so I guess it makes more sense to put it at this point. I'm not really going to ask too many questions, if it means a week off class.
I spent last weekend, the first of reading break, in Kelowna. My grandmother lives there, and my parents were going to visit here, so she kindly offered to fly me out for the weekend. We had a great time - I've got a cool aunt and uncle who live there as well, so it was sort of a mini family reunion. We went hiking, and toured a winery, and Grandma stuffed me full of food, and sent me home with a box stuffed full of left overs and mystery novels.
We went to see Paschendaele while we were in Kelowna. I'm very very interested in the first world war, for reasons that I'm not sure of. Anyway, the movie was awesome. The bits with the war were done just perfectly. There was a long involved love story as well, which I didn't enjoy as much. High point of the movie? They mentioned Rocky Mountain House (my home town). Yep. Mom and elbowed each other in excitement. Apparently a kid from Rocky was in the movie, but not someone I know. Although I went to high school with his sister, or cousin, or someone with the same last name as him.
When I got back from Kelowna, it was straight on to the computer for a liturgical studies essay. This turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. It's been a long, long time since I wrote a scholarly essay. I can do journal entries, and all the reading, but I was sure worried about putting it all together. I followed my old style of writing it all, then editing it, and I think it went ok. I'm still not sure if I wrote the right stuff, or put it together correctly, but I guess the worst that can happen is that I'll have to re write it. There was one memorable night that I was trying to get to sleep, and came to a horrible realization that I had gone in the wrong direction entirely. I leapt out of bed and worked till two in the morning, until it was done enough that I could sleep.
Today was the official first day of my field placement here in Vancouver. I'm at a very nice church not too far from the campus. I read the epistle at the 8:00, and the gospel at 10:00 (which was BCP Morning Prayer). People told me I read well, which was nice to hear. Hopefully they weren't just trying to be nice! I told them that I had been well trained in Victoria.
