Edisto island...

Well I got back to the US on Friday and on Saturday left with Kristen, Eliza, and my parents for Edisto Island. This was kind of a thank you trip for all their help in taking care of our little bug. So we are at the beach. here are some pictures.

Eliza and Daddy on the beach. I had such a great time with her.

So nice to be on a family vacation. Love my family.

I would take Eliza down to the water and let her sit between my legs. The ocean would come up to us and sometimes get her up to her legs a bit and she loved it. She would smile at the waves and loved digging in the sand. She only ate a little bit of it. she got a bit tired and would take a nap in a little tent we had. She amazes us at how good a disposition she has. She loves to dance, sing and laugh more than anything. IT is amazing that I can't even remember what life was like without her.

Daddy and Grandaddy played golf one day and the course was beautiful. It was hard though. I am not much of a golfer. But we saw an alligator and so decided not to look too hard for any of our golf balls that went into the rough.

I took this picture with my camera. I estimated the gator to be about 5 or 6 feet long. I am not as close as I look but this is just off the fairway. Adds a whole new dimension of difficulty to the course.

Edisto Island is beautiful and has lots of great places to eat. We have one more day here. We went to Charleston yesterday.

In other news, Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I will know that I have a job. I have another interview for another VA job next week. I still haven't heard back from the other interview but Kristen says the VA is notoriously slow. Cheers.

Last day in London....

So i worked on the dissertation a bit this a.m. and then went to tour Westminster Abbey and got there a bit early so I could be early for their evensong service. For you non-liturgical types, Christians used to have six hours of the day reserved for prayer they are: matins, lauds, terse, sext, none, and vespers. Most monastics still keep this. The Church of England has combined a few of them so they only have matins in the a.m. and evensong at night. It goes back to the days when the Church calendar both yearly and daily marked how we lived our lives. It was only disruptive in the sense that it caused us to stop and remember God.

So I went to evensong. And tonight was a special one because it is the day that we celebrate the Ascension of our Lord into heaven. And Rowan Williams the current Archbishop of Canterbury presided and preached. I got there early and had an awesome seat. He preached on the ascension but talked about how in many ways our humanity which seemed ugly to us at times, Christ still took it on himself, even the ugly parts, and when he ascended took that humanity with him for fellowship to God. It was good.

They had a boy's choir which was awesome and then we took the Eucharist (communion). I actually was served by the Arcbishop himself. Then on the way out I was able to shake his hand. He is a great man of God and of peace and works for peace amongst the different faiths and tries to hold the Anglican communion together which is not easy.

Is it bad that I noticed he really needs to trim his eyebrows? I mean why would that be wrong they were huge! Someone needs to tell him. Maybe next time.

Tomorrow night I will be with Kristen and Eliza. Can't wait.

Feeling better..

Kristen encouraged me to get out of the room and go see a movie. So I did and saw the Wolverine movie in Leceister Square. It was pretty good, not as good as Star Trek but good. Very violent. I am feeling better and tomorrow is my last day over here. In many ways it is great but I miss Kristen and my little cuddle bug Eliza so much. I love being a family man. Because on Saturday we go to the beach. Our first official family vacation and I get to see my little girl laugh at the ocean. Can't wait.

Tomorrow the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams will be leading a special service at Westminster Abbey for evensong. Guess who will be there! Me. I am excited. It is ascension day and a day in the church calender where traditionally the ascension of Christ is celebrated. Seems like a big even to ascend to the right hand of God but we probably rarely mention it. I will go early to look around Westminster pay homage to the other woman in my life, Elizabeth I, light a candle for my family and friends in prayer and celebrate the ascension of Christ. Exciting way to end my trip here. Cheers.

Weary...

I know that if you read my posts most will say oh my gosh the opportunity to do what he is doing would be awesome. However, as my friends know I need human contact, conversation, and fellowship. I do fine for a couple of days and get excited but the fact that I cannot come home to Kristen and Eliza and yes even the dogs makes me weary. I have two more full days in London and then come home on Friday. I am having trouble getting motivated today. I am trying to write but I am weary of the big city, public transportation, the crowds, etc. I miss my beautiful wife and lovely little girl. Can't wait.

More from the city of Bath...

Here's a little video about my trip to Bath the other day. sorry still no music for the background.

Cheers.

The Day at Cambridge...

Well I am back in the room after an exhausting day. Long walk then 1 hour train ride, then 40 minute walk to library. Then I wrote and researched a bit. And the Cambridge library was huge. I know no one (especially Christy) will be suprised but I actually got lost in the library. A couple of times. I got to check out some 16th century manuscripts and it was a good experience overall. Nothing ground breaking to my research but I did some work.

Cambridge is a university made of various colleges all over the town. Here are some pics of the buildings.

Here is a couple of pictures of the library.

Then I came back and took a nap then got some more Indian food. The food is so expensive if you go to a half way nice restaurant you can easily spend 30 or more dollars per person without blinking an eye. It sounds better in pounds but their pound is equal to 1.50 of our dollars. Good thing I have a fellowship so I can eat. Because I do get tired of KFC or burger king.

At Cambridge..

Finally made it to the library. I had a map but really didn't realize how far a walk it was from the train station. Now I am an official reader with manuscript privileges at the second oldest university in the English speaking world. I am also a reader at Oxford the first oldest. But this is where Erasmus taught theology. So off to do some writing. Cheers.

cambridge...

Tomorrow I travel to the medieval city of Cambridge to visit their library and gaze upon their manuscripts. I have never been there so I am excited. The university is 800 years old and is the second oldest in the English speaking world (Oxford was first).

Also I did hear from the VA in that they want me to interview for another job. I am doing that in a week. It is for a different supervisor so it doesn't mean I didn't get the other jobs. I hope I get something.

Here's a little attempt at movie making. I didn't put music to it yet so don't be mad...I used windows movie maker and it is of my clips of stonehenge.

writing..

Nothing exciting today. Just trying to write. I wrote a bit in the library then went around London a bit to take a break and then came back to my room to write. I have heard via Kristen that now the VA wants me to interview again for another position. This doesn't mean I didn't get the other ones I interviewed for as I applied for a couple of different jobs under different supervisors and apparently supervisors have to do their own interviewing. So i have been trying to call this person back to schedule a time to meet when I come home. So I guess it is good that they keep calling? Wish they would simply just hire me. :)

Well back to writing on the dissertation as I tend to look for any distraction to stop my progress. Have written about 15 pages since being here. It is slow going but I think going pretty well. Will keep you posted. And By the way for anyone out there who reads my blog and never blogs themselves...Please blog some. I get great joy from reading about my friends especially when I am way over here. Cheers.

Day Tripping...

Well all the libraries are closed on Sundays so I took a day trip from London to see the ancient Roman City of Bath, the cathedral of Salisbury, and Stonehenge. These were all things that I talked about with my students at Milligan in humanities. So I was excited to see them for the first time.

We first went to Bath. It is called Bath because there is a natural hot mineral spring there and so the Romans who liked to be clean built a bath house over it. It had hot, tepid, and cold areas for bathing and was actually kind of a social recreation club. It was thought to promote good health. It kind of got buried over and forgotten and then they rediscovered it in the 18th century.

Bath is also a city where they only let people build buildings out of stone. So it looks really cool.

They also filter some of the water and say that it has healing properties.

Then we went to Salisbury Cathedral. It is a medieval Gothic Cathedral. And has the tallest spire in England (402 ft). We didn't get to see as much as I would've liked as it was a Sunday and they were having services. I got to stay in a bit of one service and heard the boy's choir which was awesome. We were leaving early so I couldn't stay.

Then we rode on to Stonehenge. Interesting place. Just off the road. I didn't feel any psychic vibrations or messages from aliens or anything in case anyone was wondering.

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The Ripper tour...

Well i got back from the Jack the Ripper tour. I had fun because I did get to see a lot of London on the nice bus. We walked around the area of London called Whitechapel where the murders took place and saw all the spots where the bodies were found. Mainly it was a story telling type thing by our guide and a lot of walking. so it was okay. We drove by the place on Fleet Street where Sweeney Todd used to make people into meat pies. Actually some lady made the pies supposedly unaware that it was human meat she was using. The ghost part of it was a bust. It was kind of like here's the most haunted house in London. Okay, let's move on.

But I still had a good time. Now I am about to go to sleep and on Sunday where no libraries are open I am going on a little tour to Stonehenge, Bath, and Salisbury Cathedral. That should be really awesome. Tuesday I go to Cambridge to visit their library.

I wrote about 10 pages today of chapter 3. Feel like that is a good start. My plan is to have it done by July. My advisor wants it done by December. I think I can move faster than that. My goal is to graduate next summer. Dissertations are so disheartening. But I feel like there is a tiny light at the end of the tunnel. Cheers for now.

London...

Saw the new Star Trek movie over here today. It is now my official all time favorite movie. It was awesome. Then I walked around London at night tonight and saw some beautiful sights. It was a little rainy and so beautiful for some reason. I used my camera timer on these.

These are from Trafalgar Square. Since it was a bit rainy tonight, hardly anyone was out and about. It was a beautiful night in the city. This night tells me why I love London so much. I just stood and stared at some of the buildings. Especially Westminster Abbey. A huge structure built simply to glorify God.

I know there are a million arguments over spending money on church buildings. But the one thing I can say is that we don't build them like we used to. No matter how cool our church's new building is (we just got into a new sanctuary at Grace Fellowship) it does not inspire awe, devotion, wonder like the great Gothic cathedrals that reach to the sky. I walk in there and gaze up and see scenes of the life of Christ and almost shudder. When I had my students study church architecture from the Middle Ages I would always ask them what will it be like to study Church architecture in the 20/21st century? We will look at gyms. Lots of multi-purpose buildings. It may be a better way, but it does not inspire the awe. Those architects made their buildings as a very offering to God showing how great he was and how big he was. Sorry I got distracted there...

But I would rather be home with my girls.

Tomorrow I go back to the library to try to do some heavy duty writing. My advisor keeps talking about when I get my book published. I just want to get the thing finished first.

Praying a lot over here. Looking for God's will in a lot of areas of my life right now. Most of which I won't share. But most people know I am looking for a job. It is interesting that most people don't realize that God's will is not always comfortable and doesn't always make sense. I guess we forget that sometimes His will actually involves a cross (maybe not death hopefully) but at least at times self-denial. I am not always good with that. Milligan was my dream. I thought I felt called there. Called to teach. To show his love. I excelled there. Didn't matter. Now I am gone. Already replaced for the fall semester. I thought I actually might be hard to replace. nope. Before the semester was out all my sections were accounted for. How's that for thinking that they couldn't live without me?

But I will still trust God to lead me through. He has led me through worst times than this.

For those struggling with God's will here's a great thought.... If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done. God's ways are as hard to discern as the pathways of the wind, and as mysterious as a tiny baby being formed in a mother's womb. Be sure to stay busy and plant a variety of crops, for you never know which will grow - perhaps they all will. Ecclesiastes 11:4-6

In the meantime here's the joy and hope God has given me...Remember how Jesus said we must accept the kingdom of heaven like a little child...now I know why:)

Some more video

I just finished Ch. 1 I think. So now on to Ch. 3 tomorrow. Don't think that a dissertation is this fast. I have been working on Ch. 1 and 2 for a year or more actually. Just putting some finishing touches on them. Should have four in total. Not counting the introduction and conclusion. Hopefully I will be done writing by December. That is my goal.

This is some video from the other day. It takes so long to load that is why I didn't put it all up at once. This is of Westminster Abbey in London. A great medieval Gothic Church where Elizabeth I is buried.

Here is some video for Larry who said last time all I talked about was where I ate. This is from the other day as well. Today I actually ate at KFC and McDonald's I hated to but it was so much cheaper than anywhere else. Tomorrrow I think I will eat Greek again. Love those kabobs. The great thing about staying in London is that you burn 100000000000000 calories a day. The sad thing is that you want to eat that much as well. I have fallen in love with Starbucks again.

Did I mention that on Sunday I am taking a Jack the Ripper/Ghosts of London tour? It's at night and they actually take you to the places where Jack the Ripper murdered the prostitutes and also tell you about how haunted London is. I am so excited. I have hunted ghosts at Gettysburg and now in London. Be jealous.

Exhausted...

So went to the British library today and put what I think are my finishing touches on Chapter 2. I am going to work a bit more on Ch. 1 tonight and hopefully continue Ch. 3 research tomorrow. I left the British library and went to St. Paul's Cathedral. Haven't been there in many years.

I totally forgot how awe-inspiring it is. Christopher Wren designed it and he did some good work. It is massive and overwhelming with beauty.

I hiked up the stairs to the whispering gallery (259 steps).

You can hear whispers across the room. I really didn't. It was awfully crowded though. Then I hiked up another 119 steps to the Stone Gallery. This was on the outside of the Dome and you could most of London.

Then I went to the Tower of London just because I wanted to go to their souvenoir shop. Then I made it back to the room after a "back breaking" day of carrying around a laptop. Now I am going to rest up a bit, get a shower and get some grubb! On another note I feel like Beowulf and Monty Python all rolled into one. I bought a bottle of Mead and a bottle of Elderberry Wine. Cheers.

Long walks...

Well I wanted to get in shape. So how about a huge walk before you eat at a Chinese buffet. I ate at Mr. Wu's. He didn't seem to remember me at least the one that I think might be Mr. Wu. Mrs. Wu was as cheerful as ever. Food was good though.

I tried my hand at some movie making so here goes. I was suprised that some famous people were there because of a movie premiere.

Here is a pic of what I believe to be a Jonas brother. My niece Emma should confirm. There are cameras pointed at him. Sorry I had to blow it up to get a pic. Look closely I know one of them has to be in there.

This is part of the crowd screaming to see them. I did not scream.

Cheers.

Looking for Elizabeth in all the wrong places...

Well much of research sadly is looking, looking, looking and finding nary a thing. I perused the Cecil Papers this a.m. and found nothing of use. It is a 24 volume work so I thought that it would have a lot in it. Sadly only about small bits of 2 volumes cover the time of Elizabeth. There is plenty in there about her, just not exactly what I was looking for.

I did do some fill in type research and am going to look at Henry VIII's will in just a bit. For those who don't keep up with this kind of thing, it is the 500th annivesary of Henry's rule. So They have all kinds of stuff going on in London about Henry. The British library has an exhibit which I will go to in a bit.

Missing my wife and baby girl. I am a bad loner. When I get back though we head to the beach for a family vacation. Kristen and I have been places together before, but it feels more like a family since I get to see little Eliza Mae dip her toes in the ocean. Can't wait. Off to write and research some more.

a few more pics...

my favorite London spot. Trafalgar square.

St Martin in the Fields. After the Great Fire in London in 1666 they rebuilt a lot of the city showing the English version of the Baroque. It is quite a contrast to more gothic cathedrals such as Westminster or Cantebury.


the inside showing the organ of St Martin in the Fields.


More of the inside.

I ate Indian tonight. It was so good. I now officially worn out. I need to look up what books to order for the British Library tomorrow and then off to sleep. After using Skype to talk to Kristen and Eliza. I miss them.

In London...

Well I am finally here. Actually have been here for a while. I tried to check into my room at 8 a.m. and they told me to come back around 1 p.m. That's after an all night plane ride. So I walked around London for a few hours. Actually went to the National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, by Westerminster Abbey and Parliament, and a few other little spots like Trafalgar square. After some great Greek food for lunch I came to the hotel where I am just about to pass out. I am so tired.

The flight over was awesome. We all had our own little tv screen and had about 15 movies to choose from. I watched Yes Man. It was funny.

Here's a couple other pics.

the horse guards

The National Gallery--has awesome art in it.

My room. I will be in the bed in just a minute. Cheers.

Monday I will be in England...

Well lots of news to tell to my faithful readers, but I will only give you a bit of it. I had a great meeting with my advisor about my dissertation and she is convinced that I am on my way and can finish in the next year or so. My goal is to have it completely written by December of 2009. For those of you who might say..why's it take so long. It's like writing a book. My dissertation will be about 300 or so pages long.

Also on Monday I fly out to London to try to finish up some dissertation research. I really don't want to go but I got a substantial fellowship from UT and I need to consult a few more sources. Normally a trip to the UK (my fourth) would not be a bad thing but I will miss Kristen and Eliza a ton. I am going to spend most of my time at the British library and take a trip to Cambridge University as well. I might try to take another side trip and maybe go see Stonehenge and Bath.

No word yet from the VA but they told me it might take 2-4 weeks. So hopefully I will hear something during my trip to London.

still waiting

Well I am still waiting to hear something from the VA but they might take up to a month. And on Monday I am heading out to England again. I won't be there that long but I will update the blog on my activities and hope to take some time off when I get back. Hopefully I will be starting a new job as well.

Eliza trying to crawl

She is trying. She is an expert on rolling over now and rolls over to get where she wants to go.
In other news, no news on the job yet. But I did get a small fellowship for study in England so I am leaving the Monday after Mother's Day and staying for 10 days. I hope to get a bunch of dissertation research done while over there. Kristen and I also would love to go to the beach when I get back to take little Eliza Mae and see her dip her toes in the ocean.