Saturday 30th January

I can't believe it's the 30th already. It's like every year speeds by faster and faster. Anyhow today has started off really really well - I had a great chat with Nina, who was filling me in on all the details about Lucy's baby which arrived on Friday evening. Sounds all very traumatic, but all is well, which is a huge relief. And he's going to be called Finlay! Fabulous Scottish name there, way to go guys!
And.. yes, I can now confirm that I actually have passed Latin. The mark is up there on Websurf, which is where they put all of your recorded marks and stuff, so I'm subtly chuffed with myself. I'm never going to be any good at it, but with a little effort and so on, I can just about translate a sentence or two until I finally get to the point where I'm managing the odd passage - but who ever would have thought a woman of my age would be able to do this? Just goes to show sometimes you can really suprise yourself. It's a mute (moot?) point as to whether mentally I'm constantly saying to myself you shouldn't be able to do this really, and hence creating the 'difficulty' with it mentally so to speak, but the fact of the matter is I got there and got a passing grade. Perhaps this means that I can be a bit more confident about it, and the internal debate about whether I should or should not be able to do it will slacken off, and I will get better at it. From what I hear from my classmates, it's got really really tough this term. Or rather as I should say, semester - everything is so American these days. Why we have to have semesters I'll never know.
Anyhow, yesterday I reamed Van Gennep's Rites of Passage - fabulous book this. I remember it so well from when I was studying Anthropology. It's one of those books that you pick up and read, and then say Yes, I knew this, I just didn't have the labels for it. You know how sometimes you come across things that just feel so incredibly right that you've somehow known them all along? Anyhow Rites of Passage is one of those books. I've been reading it for my upcoming presentation on Death and Liminality for Constructing Faith. This is based upon St Augustine's On the Care to be had for the Dead, which sounds ghastly, but actually isn't.
So anyhow at some point I should really go and get dressed (ok, I've been watching Football Focus) and get myself off down to the supermarket then I can come back and do some more reading... it's a neverending circle of read this, do that, read that, do this. But that's what masters are all about I guess. It's quite a nice day out, definitely rather chilly, but most of the snow has gone -we had a light dusting of the stuff yesterday. I'm over snow. Very nice, but I'm done with it now, and I'd like a few crocus - well, that's not going to happen for a few more weeks. Remember you're in Scotland now girl.