I’ve just got home. I’m getting really bad at keeping people updated on this blog. I’ve had quite a busy week doing lots of work; mostly dissertation work (translating the Psalms of Solomon from Greek into English). Also seen quite a few films and went out for Nat’s second party. I had a party of my own on Monday night, where we watched a French film called Taxi – very very funny.

Wow sorry for no update for ages; I have had quite a manic week. I’ve been writing some of my dissertation (now up to 6000 words or so), a sermon for the preaching class that I go to, and also been trying to see everyone before they go down for Christmas.

On Tuesday evening, there was the CICCU carol service. I went to the 10pm one by Jonathon Fletcher. It was quite good, although he is very Cambridge and quite academic so it was more logical arguments than passionate proclamation, which is the style that connects with me the best. Spent the rest of the evening chatting to friends until quite late.

Wednesday I got up late and so missed all of my lectures. I lead the Bible study at CU which seemed to go ok. Sarah, one of the reps, was having her joint birthday party afterwards, so I went there for a bit and saw Tabs and Zish. I then went round to Emmanuel to see Ed, Nat, Ruth, Dave etc and we saw Charlie and the Chocolate factory. It was quite a good film although very strange and creepy in places!

Thursday evening I went out to Pizza Express with about 30 people from Emma to celebrate Natalie’s 21st (even though it’s not until next weds). It was, as expected, really good food and nice to meet lots of other people from Emmanuel. Went back to her floor afterwards and had quite a good party going on until about 2am.

On Friday, Ben arrived from America to see some of us. He was the leader of our China team in the summer. We had a recruitment drive in the afternoon which was quite sparsly attended although the people who came seemed very keen. I then went off to have a supervision, which went quite well, and then in the evening, Mary, Lauren, Anna C, Widge, Ben and myself had a chinese at mine. Joel came round a bit later and we sat around until about 12:30 chatting about things. I then remembered that I had to write my sermon to give at preaching class in the morning, so I was up until about 2am on that. I then went to bed and got up at around 7 to finish it off and print it out etc. It seemed quite successful and I learnt a lot. Scarily enough, I have to do one at St Nix on the evening of Jan 8th about my experiences in China. Should be fun anyway.

After that, I came back and some of us went out to have a full English breakfast with Ben and Andrew (who’d just flown in from Vancover and is headed back to HK on Monday) at Tatties. We talked about the future of the China programme and then came back to mine. Everyone left about half one and I slept for a few hours and then did some more work on my dissertation.

Wow. The rev concert last night was really really good, even if I have to say so myself ;-). My voice is pretty much dead now but it was awesome to see about 300 people there and they were all standing up and dancing around by the end of the evening. After the concert, lots of us went to the Slug&Lettuce where we had a nice free buffet dinner and lots of drinks. I stayed around chatting to lots of people and met some people who I’d not spoken to before, which is always good fun.

The past few days I’ve just been doing work and messing around; nothing particularly fun other than Rev to report, although I will be going to the CICCU carol service soon which will have about 2000 people and is always fun; even though I’m not reading this year. My dissertation is coming along reasonably – up to about 3600 words at the moment although I still have a lot more to write before my supervision next Monday. I’m worried that I won’t be able to write enough, but from what I hear that’s a good thing because the dissertation always grows as you discover new things to footnote or research.

I have put a few more essays online, one on the transfiguration and one on the crucifixion.

I’ve not really been doing much the past few days (surprise)… Mostly, I’ve just been doing work. I decided to focus on my dissertation this week, and so hopefully I’ll be able to write 5000 words for it. Today, I’ve written about 1000 and thought more about some arguments I can use. I’ve also spent a lot of time in rehearsals for the Revelation concert tonight – come and see it!

Went to see Harry Potter on Saturday night. It was really good although we were really close to the screen so not a particularly good view and it hurt my eyes a bit. Oh well!

My Iranian mate M came to church with me on Sunday morning and really enjoyed it. Hopefully he’ll want to come again next week

Wow the past two days have been very busy with writing essays and doing other work; and it looks like the next week will be like that too. Had a nice film evening on Thursday night, even though only Ruth and Chris showed up.. we just chatted for a long time and watched some Simpsons in the end. I had a nice bible study with Patrick before that, and on Thursday lunch time I’d been working in the UL for a bit and met up with Heather, Liz and Emma for lunch – I’ve really not seen those guys much this term so that was nice.

Friday I had a supervision at 9 and then did some work after it. The supervision went well; he said the essay was good and he only criticised it on two relatively minor points and we were basically done after 20 minutes. I met up with Lorna for lunch and we had a really nice chat for about 2 hours. It was quite amusing trying to meet up with her; we had arranged to meet at Selwyn and I phoned her to say I was there. “Hi Lorna, I’m at the porter’s lodge; are you around?” “Hi Mark, I’m in the porters lodge too!” “Uhhh I don’t see you” “Wait a minute, which porter’s lodge are you at?” “Umm.. Selwyn as we arranged” “Ah, I’m at Sidney as I thought we’d agreed!”. D’oh. In the afternoon, I went to the France prayer group for a bit of fun and we stayed around chatting for a while afterwards.

After this, I had to dash back to Sidney for my “Academic Review” with the master. It’s strange that all final years have to have a review with the person who knows them probably the least of all in the college. Don’t get me wrong; she’s a wonderful person and she says hi when I pass her in the corridors or whatever, but it seems a lot more sensible to meet with the director of studies, or someone who actually knows where you’re coming from and what you’re doing. She basically just looked at my grades (which improved since switching to theology) and talked about next year and asked how I was finding this year, said well done and I was out of there within 5 minutes. I’m really not sure how that’s supposed to motivate someone to do well, or to stop someone from doing poorly.

In the evening, there was the Harry’s christmas dinner which was very packed. So packed indeed, that I was asked to leave. I went home and slept for a bit because I’d not been getting much sleep recently, and then went back at the end to meet Mehmet and Resin (Mehmet’s wife) and take them to see Ruth as they didn’t know where she lived this year. I went to see Serena and Felicity to collect some of my commentaries from them as I’m meant to be preparing the Bible study in college group this week (Wow – CICCU has declared me clean…).

I had a strange form from the inland revenue through the post, asking for some money. I don’t really understand it but this thing on the back of the payment slip caught my attention: “If you wish to pay, payments must be received before 06/04/2010.” Given most bills give you until the end of the month, if you’re lucky, 5 years seem rather far fetched…

Had quite a hard few days work-wise (ie I’ve actually been doing some). However, it’s not all been work – last night I had a good time at a formal hall at Pembroke with some of the guys I was in China with: Daniel, Katies and Lauren. The meal was really nice, starting with some toast with cheese and bits of chicken on top and some salad, and then the main course of lamb with a wonderful source and some vegetables that looked suspiciously like those from the sainsburies freezers. We then had a really wonderful pudding of apple and blackcurrent. Mmmmmm. The only downside was that the hall was relatively expensive, but that doesn’t really matter.

I’ve been thinking recently as I’ve been reading some really old commentaries, about how language changes and how it will change. Over the past 150 years, English has changed a little bit, mostly with the past tenses of some words switching to be shorter. With the rise of modern computers with spell-checkers though, I suppose that our words are standardised in such a way that they won’t be mutating as quickly, if at all. I wonder if this means that we’ll carry on writing words in traditional forms but move to new pronunciations, or whether the language will itself change slower because of the computers dictating the spelling of it. Either way, I suppose the vocabulary can change and mutate, but that seems to happen slower in a language than internal modifications of words… Random.

Went to Eden on Sunday morning as per usual. The sermon was all about how we should be crying for the needs of the world; which was quite challenging. I crashed HT lunch afterwards and then spent the afternoon with friends and then had a nice sleep. In the evening, I had agreed to take some people from City church to formal at Sidney because there was a large group trip organised. That was great fun, good to get to know some more Christians in Cambridge. Afterwards, about 20 of us squeezed into my room because all the other rooms in college were full. I managed to advertise the Revelation concert and also ISEC (the free trip to China in the summer). Several people were very interested in the latter. I think I must have got to bed about midnight, but I wasn’t particularly tired so I did some translation.

I spent most of Monday in bed being absolutely shattered from my cold. Translated two or three chapters of Mark’s gospel and did a little reading for essays. Went to CCCF in the evening and then watched “Bill and Ted” which is a “like totally bodacious” film!

Spent Friday and Saturday mostly in bed feeling rotten. Oh well it’s been good to listen to some sermons and I’ve read a fair amount of Greek as well. Have done some vaguely interesting stuff though. Friday afternoon I was feeling bored so I chatted to Tabs for a bit and we then went out to see the illumanated manuscripts thingie at the Fitz museum which was very good. Bumped into Dave Mac along the way and he came with us. I then went to Harry’s and the formal hall afterwards which was in aid of Children in Need and hence had fishfingers and so on.. Not too nice, in fact some combination of that and being ill made me want to throw up.

I then went round to see Sue in Sidney because she organised a get togeather of all the Christians in college. Couldn’t stay long as I wasn’t feeling too well and also wanted to go and see Richard for a little bit.

Saturday evening I went to my wife’s (Lydia) party which was quite good fun although less wild than in previous years. I met her friend Truc from the states who had come over and seemed really nice. Also had a good catch up with some of the choir people who I’d not seen in a while. Anyway it’s midnight and I’ve been sleeping a lot today so I think I’ll go off and do some work now.

Congrats to my bro for passing his driving test yesterday; and congrats to my mate Barney for becoming the next CICCU president!

Spent today in bed generally feeling groggy, although did get up to go to lunch with a friend and get some books out of the libaries for my dissertation and other essays. Just lay in bed most of the day listening to sermons and then watched Die Hard this evening; always a good film!

I’ve found or been sent several good links today:
What a job – searching through dinasaur faeces to find grass…
Bishops requesting changing the dates of the synod so they can watch the football.
A more serious letter from evangelical archbishops to the archbish of Canterbury.