happenings

One of the pretentious words we use in literary studies is "topos". This is the Greek word for place and is used for commonly recurring themes or modes of expression in particular forms of literature. One topos common among bloggers is the apology for not having posted for a long time. This can get a bit tedious after a while, so I won't do it here.

Well, I think the exam went fairly well. Afterwards we went for lunch at the Granta, where I ate duck wrap and took pictures of people. The other week I attended a dinner in college for graduate students - 12 postgrads and 6 fellows. They rotate these dinners so that all the postgrads in college participate once a year. I got to talk to Dan Wakelin, one of the Christ's English fellows (who has his own fan club on Facebook), and Luke Skinner, a young palaeoclimatologist (someone who studies climate in the past) from America. Both were very amiable company (as were my fellow graduate students).

As I think I've said before, baptisms are always great. I tend to go to an average of one baptism a term but this term I will have been to two. A couple of weeks ago was Mark's baptism. As well as the encouragement of hearing Mark's testimony of how his faith has grown and developed over the years, there was an excellent sermon on the prodigal son from Marvin Wong. Marvin is from Malaysia and his cross-cultural insights, among other things, help in making his preaching come alive. You can listen to the sermon from the Eden website - look for '2006/02/05 Lost and found'. A number of Cambridge churches now have downloadable MP3 sermons. (If HT people are reading this, take it as a hint) . This Sunday I will hopefully go to Annie's baptism.

My main work focus at the moment is a textual bibliography project (looking at old books in their original editions and finding something to say about them). I'm looking at English publications of Calvin's Institutes (a hugely influential theological work) and adaptations of it. I recently got to look at a copy of the original edition of the first version of the Institutes, published in Basle in 1536. One of the first known references to the work is in a letter from Marcus Bersius to the Swiss Reformer Vadianus which mentions the Basle publication of “a catechism by some Frenchman or other, dedicated to the king of France”. From the first version of the Institutes in 1536 to Calvin's final revision in 1549, the work grew from 6 chapters to 86 chapters.

Last Saturday, I went to a day on China, which was informative and encouraging. Today I saw David Cornish, who is back from Japan for a couple of weeks. I recently discovered that one of the people who helps out with the HT international tea, and was in India for 20 years with his wife, knows my Grandad from their time together in China when they were children. I've also got to hang around in Costa Coffee a bit recently. I'm sure I've been up to more than that recently, but I'll try to post as things come to mind.