August Ends

Memory's a funny thing, isn't it? When I look back on my first few weeks at University I paint a pretty rosy picture. Those first few lectures. My first impressions of those people who would later become close friends. Some hijinxes in the Ram and the Imperial. I have to really take myself back there before I remember all the tears, the wanting to go home.

I think I'll look back on August 2011 in very much the same way. While there haven't been many tears it's been rather an awkward month. A month of sitting around and fidgeting, filling long summer days in a beautiful setting with not very much at all and wishing we had more money to do it in. Longing for things to start, to have a purpose for being in this wonderful place. Meeting lovely people, but not quite knowing how to get beyond the small talk. In a few weeks time when term begins and we start to eat meals in the college and get down to some studying I know we'll settle quickly, and most of this will pass. But I hope I at least remember August as it has been, if only to inform my initial discussions with next year's intake.

The bank holiday was rather a ray of sunshine. Mum and Dad had been saying for a little while that we ought to do something together, and we decided to go to Stow on the Wold. We visited Bourton on the Water for a walk on Monday and Stratford on Avon for a theatre tour yesterday. I didn't think I'd need a holiday, but somehow going away from here, if only for 48 hours, has made a difference.

So, what else have we been up to? Well, we went to the dentist at Oxford Brookes today - it's amazing how something like going to the dentist can become the centre point of your day when you're not doing anything else. Tomorrow Paul is going to Oxford and Cherwell Valley to enroll on his Diploma in Progression. Oh, and after some umm-ing and ah-ing he's also signed up to do the Cuddesdon School of Theology and Ministry which runs on a Thursday evening. We talked about it a lot and think it's a good idea for him to have some basic theological training and it's a good forum for him to address his big questions. Seriously, Paul thinks about Theology much more than I do. Christology and the Trinity, Salvation, Heaven and Hell and that sort of thing. I've told him the greatest thinkers in history have spent thousands of years not solving these things, but you just can't tell some people...!

I've abandoned my pre-reading in favour of Crime and Punishment. I've really been struggling with the pre-reading, I feel I've been reading it without an anchor, like none of my previous study has really prepared me for this sort of Theology. It's not compulsory, so I've quietly put it away, to be returned to as and when I need it. Crime and Punishment, on the other hand, is superb. It's the fourth Dostoevsky novel I've read and the first one I've actually enjoyed!

And I've been watching my Lewis box set like mad. Today a girl in a wheelchair came out of Blenheim Palace and straight into the Blenheim maze which is about half a mile away. I've a feeling Lewis is going to do nothing for my geography.