Ran my 1.7, prayers, fruit breakfast, now to work on closing out last term before this term begins snowballing on me… | Continue reading
I gave myself this morning off from running; I didn’t sleep well, and will probably need to nap later in the day. I spent yesterday at a job interview, and in the aftermath am utterly wiped put from the energy output. I can’t write about the location or result yet, but I’ll have … | Continue reading
I’m seeing a great many visits from Singapore again today, so ‘Hello and welcome!’ | Continue reading
I neglected to mention that yesterday I worked on a homily for tomorrow morning’s job interview, so there’s that. Then this morning I ran, said Morning Prayer, scuttled off to Mass, returned, ate breakfast, and hammered away at some home tasks. Now I’m marking, catching up on som … | Continue reading
I ran, I prayed, I conquered my hot breakfast. | Continue reading
I’ll stop by Regent’s Park College this afternoon for farewell cake with [soon to be ex-] colleagues; this is the last working day of my contract. I have only great things to say about Regent’s: everyone here has welcomed me, treated me with appreciation and respect, and has conv … | Continue reading
I forgot to check in this morning, but the day didn’t really comprise anything out of the ordinary. I ran and said my prayers in the morning, picked up some groceries in the afternoon, and tried to be productive in between. Made fajitas for Margaret for dinner — that’s about it. | Continue reading
When I was too young to exercise any judgement about the important things in life, I received from my dad the sense that my baseball hero ought to be Brooks Robinson. I do not remember ever having been in any doubt on the matter, at any point in my life. I should explain that we… | Continue reading
Ran my 1.7, said my prayers, spent the morning studying for an online interview, was interviewed, ate lunch, assembled a four-drawer printer stand, more work. | Continue reading
I had a very peculiar experience this morning. After I ran and prayed and brought Margaret her morning tea, I prepared for my shower with a degree of anticipation since my repairs improved the shower experience noticeably. But I had a strong feeling that I had enjoyed several sho … | Continue reading
Ran, prayed, showered, working on an application, will have to dream up a homily for each of next week’s interviews — prretty much the same as always. | Continue reading
Last night I led Evensong and joined Orielenses who matriculated about ten years ago at their Gaudy. it was a lovely evening; I saw my former students Olivia and Emily, Benjy and Hugh, and dined with Jenna, Jessie, Zizzy, and Alice (a theology fellow-traveller from Classics) — al … | Continue reading
So, I didn’t get much marking done yesterday. Friday is ‘new posts announcement’ day, and I spent some time looking over alternatives, and also time on emails, and had difficulty focusing on marking, and, well, you get the picture. Then in the afternoon I got ready and headed in … | Continue reading
I’m eager to resume reading, tenderising my faculties for longer and more comfortable sessions with, you know, actual books, but for now reading is out till I finish marking. Ran this morning, out prowling Headington cafés (would prefer an indie café, but the chains are more like … | Continue reading
I don’t have time to pick apart the convergence and occasional quibble that connect Seth Sanders’s essay ‘Dead Words and Haunting Melody’ in the ace online journal Ancient Jew Review, but I read it with joy and intellectual excitement. Seth gets at one of the vital aspect-problem … | Continue reading
First, greetings to readers from Singapore! For a reason obscure to me, a wave of readers from your fair city visited yesterday. Since I don’t know what brought you here, I can’t promise more of it — but I’m gratified that you stopped in. Feel free to come by any time. Ran my 1.7 … | Continue reading
Ran my 1.7 in markedly blustery winds (Home Office: ‘moderate breezes’), and tackling the marking monster again. | Continue reading
I ran both Saturday and Sunday mornings, but today it was raining and I gave it a miss. Saturday I went in to London to take part in the annual Sodality Day of the Sodality of Mary, Mother of Priests at St Mary’s, Kilburn. We had a fine day talking over topics of relevance (urgen … | Continue reading
Ran my 1.7, spending the productive part of the morning at the Bodleian marking essays, whee! | Continue reading
Ran my 1.7 this morning (12°, decent pace), Morning Prayer, correspondence, travel planning for tomorrow morning’s meeting of the Sodality of Mary, Mother of Priests, and (here’s the red herring bit) resumed my eager consumption of Brian Vickers’s In Defence of Rhetoric, a feast … | Continue reading
Another 1.7 miles. Down to 11° this morning, much more seasonable, though we didn’t get a fair share of warmth in July and August. Minke came out of the bedroom earlier than her friend, so I attached her lead, opened the door, and led her to the side of the flat where she and Flo … | Continue reading
Next on my menu of overdue obligations are two essays, one about half finished and one entirely unbegun. Luckily, they’re on (tangentially) related topics. The first is on Anglican biblical hermeneutics. In that essay I’ll be arguing that the vital heart of Anglican biblical herm … | Continue reading
Got up, ran my ? miles (15°, 94% humidity, actually a good, steady pace), said Morning prayer, watched the clip of the Postal Service that Nate sent me from the concert he saw, and now I begin the rest of my day without a thought about the epistle of James. It’s been so long that … | Continue reading
Morning run, correspondence, writing and editing, and today my James essay is off to its editor. Tomorrow I wake up one obligation lighter. | Continue reading
Today’s my sixty-sixth birthday; by good fortune, there are no other sixes applicable to the date. I started by running (17°, ‘feels like 20°’), by cleaning up and going to church at St Andrew’s, by pushing more to the finish line of the James essay, and reminiscing about my love … | Continue reading
Ran, cleaned the kitchen, Cooked breakfast, worked on the James essay, took a walk with Margaret and the ladies… and sweltered. That kind of day. | Continue reading
(Yes, I ran this morning, though it was 17° and dire humidity. Another one point seven or so.) Yesterday was actually a productive writing day, both in word count and more importantly in breaking up a long, long writer’s block with respect to my James article. I’m hopeful to keep … | Continue reading
This morning I ran my run (in relatively warm weather, and the humidity has been abominable all this late summer/early autumn, and now I’m just outside the Bodleian sipping a cup of coffee before going in to try valiantly to finish the James chapter. There’s a crux in the essay — … | Continue reading
Leisurely morning run (one point seven), every day for the past week or so. Very good interview Monday — not a good match, but good conversation. A positive interaction with all concerned, and especially the Bishop and Area Dean, such that I have a sense (for the first time in si … | Continue reading
Several days of digital silence here — we went to Wolverhampton for Eleanor Feeney’s wedding to Adam Mihalik, then I rushed home to interview for a post Wednesday morning, then I got word that the committee had chosen another candidate, which put a damper on my interest in writin … | Continue reading
In the process of unpacking, we left an open bow on the floor, containing one of the dogs’ (many) bed/carpets in it. A couple of days ago, Minke noticed it and jumped in, and since then she and Flora have been devoted to occupying it. I took my morning run (the distance of which … | Continue reading
With one morning run, one trip to church (almost the same route), and one dog-walk, I’m up to four miles already today. Likely I’ll spend the rest of the day sitting down, working on a sermon (or James). | Continue reading
Another one-and-a-half today, at a slightly peppier (still nothing exciting) pace. Home with the ladies, now, while Margaret works on her presentation on ‘Should Commodities Flourish?’, working on my own sermon for an upcoming Special Event and thinking about finishing my James e … | Continue reading
I woke this morning to the first day on which neither Margaret nor I will be shuttling to or from James Street. Granted that we didn’t exactly choose to relocaate, this feels very very good. My morning route is still a bit short, but I got my run in and it felt okay, at a… | Continue reading
In a few minutes I’ll swing down to James Street, call for a ride, load up our boxes destined for storage, take them to our units, squeeze them in, lock the doors, and that will be that. (Margaret will take some books to Mary Mags tomorrow or Sunday, but we’re not really counting … | Continue reading
We’re back in Headington this afternoon, after spending the morning organising our retreat from East Oxford. We wrought four categories: going to the flat, going to storage, going to Mary Mags’s book sale, bin, and recycle. Once assured that we didn’t have to choreograph our rubb … | Continue reading
So, I tried out a new route this morning — running and walking, trying to find my way — and the planned route came in at 1.6 miles. Our part of Headington is tricky, because (unlike East Oxford) the roads are less tight a network of blocks, and they tend to meander outward with o … | Continue reading
No running, though I’m thinking about my (necessarily) new route. More dog-care (we want to keep them quiet; they’ve never lived in a flat before, and we want to help them learn to be good neighbours). Margaret and I have each made a trip to James Street and back. There’s less an … | Continue reading
This’ll be the first weekday in our new digs. Margaret plans to go to a local cafe to work this morning; I’ll stay here with the dogs, who are still very anxious about having moved. I’ll try to make some headway on sermon and essay while at home. Then, later in the day, one or… | Continue reading
It’s a long story, but the short version is that our move out of college housing was accelerated (to our surprise) and we had to do our relocation act sooner and more intensely than we had expected. Last Wednesday, the BRitish Heart Foundation took away some of our furniture, and … | Continue reading
No run, cos my socks and trainers are packed somewhere, and we need the time to finish up packing all the goods that are going into storage. Right now, it all looks distinctly bleak, but once everything’s gone we’ll be in a position to begin a new (and, we may hope, a short) phas … | Continue reading
Vanilla morning run, two miles 11°, not much more to say. This morning, the British Heart Foundation swings past to pick up several large items of furniture. This afternoon the sofa goes. The dogs are very anxious. | Continue reading
This morning was a bit brisk (11°), and I felt a little rusty after skipping yesterday’s run, but otherwise no real noteworthy aspects. Two miles. | Continue reading
Heavy rain this morning, so I haven’t run. It’s not unthinkable that I run later in the day, but it’s unlikely. | Continue reading
One of the dogs has a moderately dramatic digestive disruption, so Margaret got less sleep last night than would be ideal. We woke up together, I to run and she to clean up a puddle of puke and some gelatinous other dog by-product; she went back to sleep, and I run under light cl … | Continue reading
Did I mention that Käthe came to stay with us a couple of weeks ago? Last night she blogged about the multi-staged holiday she took that included her stay in Oxford (Margaret and I make a cameo appearance — don’t blink or you’ll miss us!). But making links is one of the vital vir … | Continue reading
Two miles, uninteresting conditions, although just as my warm-up was transitioning into full-on running, I think I may have experienced a few moments of the breezing I observed in another runner earlier this week. I do not infer from that that I’m about to experience a breakthrou … | Continue reading
I noted a while ago that Jenee Woodard sends traffic this direction to my New Edition post. It occurred to me that I hadn’t taken a look recently to see what has generated most traffic to this blog over the past decade or so. The old favourites are Plural of Impetus (for obvious … | Continue reading