yet more may week

So, to catch up (for anyone who takes an interest):

The ball was fun. I foolishly failed to make contact with the Christ's students in my year going to the Jesus ball, so ended up queuing by myself. Having got in, however, I was rescued by Benjy, Jo and Bella, with whom I spent most of the rest of the night. Dora and her boyfriend (Tim? Tom?) also joined our party for a lot of the time. Highlights - bouncy castle, ceilidh - I didn't do too badly waltzing.

Tuesday - CU barbecue - Jesus Green(!). Then Globe garden party - Globe is a bit like Harry's, but is run for international undergraduates in Cambridge University. This garden party was held at the 'Darwin shrine' in Christ's. This location is, depending on your choice of phrase, "out of the way" or "a well kept secret". The site consists of a bust of Darwin, a water feature, and enough space on the grass to put down a few rugs. Some had remarked on the ironies of this choice of venue, and Richard gestured towards Darwin looking on in his talk, but it actually suited the gathering quite well, because the surroundings didn't swamp the number of people who came. Richard spoke on 'True Success' and was again great. Passages used were Luke 9:18-27 and 1 Peter 2:21-25 with particular focus on the statements "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it" (Luke 9:24) and "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness" (1 Peter 2:24). Food was plentiful - I ended up taking home some poppadoms and a bottle of lemonade - and conversation eminently pleasant.

Tuesday evening I ate an African meal in the house of a couple from my church with some workers from Wycliffe Bible Translators and others interested in their work. It probably isn't appropriate to post all the detail here, but I've been really inspired by these events. What is especially exciting is Vision 2025, Wycliffe's vision, working with others, to see a translation project started in every language without the Bible by the year 2025 - Wycliffe research suggests there are more than 2,700 such languages in the world, so this will take both multipled workers and "serious outside the box thinking", along with plenty of prayer. To get an idea of the breadth of what Wycliffe does and its mode of operation, spend some minutes browsing their excellent main website. (There is a UK website, but I linked to the US/international one because it has more info.)

Yesterday was a visit from my sister Lizzy up from London. The main thing we did together was to go and see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in Emma fellows' garden. This has had good reviews in the student press, and deservedly so. One of the most fun things is that on the journey to and from Narnia the audience is invited to travel physically through through the set from one location to another. We did feel that the actors might be suffering somewhat in fur coats in the sweltering heat, but I guess this was the artistic price to pay for representing Narnian winter in Cambridge summer. We were glad of shade. After the play we walked through King's and then by the river a bit. I then treated her to the culinary delights of Christ's upper hall (basically canteen food) the last night it was open, before walking her to the station to catch the train back to King's Cross. By the way, a film of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is in production (official site; IMDB entry). We'll have to wait and see, but from what I've heard it sounds promising.

Today was the day I should have got my exam results. I went down to the Senate House initially at 10:30ish. The Senate House is the building from which the university is governed and outside which exam results are posted (they used to be published in The Times as well). After going back to college until 12, I returned to the Senate House to see if the class lists had been posted in the meantime (they can be posted any time from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm). There I hung around a while with Susan Allister (also an English student, at Fitz) and other people I more or less knew, not all of whose names I can remember. These were not all English students, and not all picking up results - some came along for the ride, which was fair enough. Kyle very kindly provided us with ice cream and it turned into quite a sociable occasion. After we had hung around quite a while, some girl none of us had ever seen before came and spoke to us through the railings, identifying us as English students and telling us that she'd heard the English results were delayed until tomorrow. Having been joined by David Pfeiffer, we went to Christ's Pieces to eat lunch, which we bought from Peppercorns. I had a jumbo granary chicken, bacon and egg sandwich and a lime and apple drink. We then returned to Senate House for a final wander around before going our various ways.

This afternoon was the college quincentenary garden party. To be honest, there wasn't overly much to distinguish it from the general run of garden parties (although the portable laser quest tent was a novel idea) but it was reasonably pleasant in atmosphere and it was good to see people. This evening, certain eating establishments were offering discounts for those at the garden party, and so Rashmi, Mark and Peter and I ended up at La Tosca, along with around 50 other Christ's students on different tables. I shared a chicken paella with Peter, and we also had various tapas (smaller dishes) between us. Having got back to college I sat outside on the balcony with my neighbours. Very Mediterrean.

I'm finding it quite strange being in limbo - this is a metaphorical limbo, you understand - theologically I find a real limbo rather dubious. I seem to be drifting through my days quite amicably but without getting much done. I partly need to learn how to relax and not feel pressured to "achieve" all the time, but I am also aware that there are things I need to do which are not getting done very quickly. It also doesn't seem at all real that I only have a week left in Cambridge. I need to find the right combination of focus and serenity and need to be able to motivate myself without driving myself into the ground. That could sound exceedingly mushy, so I'll give you another post which gives more biblical content to this quest.