A First Class Life

First class is the way to travel. Having just been served lunch with a side of as much Black Forest cake and coffee as I wish, I feel a bit like royalty. Too bad the journey from St Andrews to London is only five hours. As we’re currently at Newcastle Station, I’ve got 2.5 hours to eat my fill of chocolate goodness.

I’m heading to London to spend the week looking after Cousin Mungo, while Ronald, Judith’s son, is away on a business trip. As my dear mom often reminds me, ‘It’s not what you know but who you know’. In my world it’s a bit of both, but the point is taken. I have a week ahead of playing tourist, with very nice and very free accommodation, a wee pug at my side, and a first class train ticket generously purchased by Ronald in my name to make it all happen. Am I lucky, or what? 

Cousin Mungo

It won’t be all fun and games, though. The work must still get done, particularly now that I’m down to a mere two months  before I say ‘adios’ to Scotland for good, and only six weeks before my mom and dad start flashing their passports in their race to see me. So I’ll spend my early mornings working away, followed by afternoons of London extravaganzas (i.e. walking around and taking in free or very cheap attractions), followed by evenings at home with Mungo and the computer.

The viva feels like ages ago now. My days are again consumed by early morning till late afternoon study sessions, adding, tweaking, and revising sections of the thesis. As discouraging as it is to still have things to do, I’ve been very encouraged these last few weeks, and have been reminded of God’s grace in all of my life’s pursuits. The viva examiners’ reports where strongly encouraging. One examiner wrote that my thesis is perhaps ‘more intellectually ambitious than any [he has] ever examined or supervised’. Elsewhere they called it ‘theologically ambitious’. And, because it is so ‘ambitious’, they’ve requested special permission for me to have an additional 20,000 words to use in order to sustain the argument. That means that I don’t have to take out anything from the current thesis but that my thesis ultimately will be 100,000 words when it would have been the standard 80,000 words—a huge increase.  The beautiful thing is that, everything they’ve requested I add to the thesis now is what I had already anticipated adding for publication purposes at a later date.  I’m just being forced to do it now rather than then—a long-term benefit to me.

And in the midst of trying to wrap up things here in the United Kingdom, I’m increasingly looking forward to my transition to Spokane. How can I not do so, when I get notes like these from future colleagues:

‘Let it be a comfort to you to remember that you're coming into a maximally supportive situation here at Whitworth and in our department.  Everyone is rooting for you. . . . There's no doubt that you're going to flourish once you arrive here’.

And: ‘We're excited for you to arrive. There is quite a buzz among the students about you!’

Changes are afoot!  I’m riding first class on a train, but I’m pretty sure I’m also living a first class life.

As ever, stay tuned for photos of Londonland!