11/10/2017

I am back home after my rush visit to Newbold.

Newbold has always been good to me, and it didn’t disappoint me this time either. When I think of this place and try to find a metaphor which would explain – or at least try to explain – what it means to me, I’d say it’s like an anchor. It’s one stable place for me, something that keeps me grounded and something I can go back to when I start drifting or am in danger of forgetting who I am. Once I’ve been there, I’m back on track. Once again I know who I am. And why I am.

My visit was so short I didn’t contact everyone I would have wanted to see. I knew I couldn’t fill my days with meeting friends this time. I didn’t even tell The Lady I was on campus, although I have missed her and her counseling office a lot. I would have loved to talk about life and grief and losses and victories. Not this time, I told myself, there will be other times for that in the future, in sha Allah. There were other people whom I would have loved to see again. But no. Some other time.

Which doesn’t mean I isolated myself entirely. I went out with friends who are on campus, had some appointments with lecturers, and had lunch with the whole staff of the Department of Theological Studies on Tuesday. They were having an academic board that day so everyone was on campus. It was a happy meeting for me, some of my lecturers I hadn’t seen for a long while. And then, after their marathon board meeting, we headed out with T. (I should really say Dr T. de B.) and Dr A. N. and Dr J-C. V. for a long and lazy dinner. It’s still difficult for me to make the mental transition from being their student to being their colleague. But I loved every minute of this dinner.

I think I spent only about an half an hour in Dr A. N.’s office. She gave me drugs – books – which I had run out of and which she had so generously purchased for me. So I’m good for a while, until I run out of the stuff again and will need another fix, that is. Books are dangerous, addictive stuff, and I’m hopelessly hooked. But it wasn’t only about books. It literally took less than half an hour for her to give me some direction I so badly needed in my life. What she told me (to do) felt almost like a revelation. That’s why she’s my mentor no 1. Only she can do something like this.

But work also got done. I am really looking forward to the next semester and to the translations we are going to do with Riga study group. Chapters of 1 John, some Mark and Matthew, bits from Revelation – I think it will be the most enjoyable semester of all! The hard labour of working through endless grammar tables has ended, let the tranlsation fun begin.

And the exam got done. It took me and T. almost three hours to get it on paper but we did it!

It all felt a lot like a breath of fresh air. And God knows I needed it. I had been struggling with a lot of stuff before the trip, sleeping problems and growing sugar addiction. Seeing mom in my dreams again. Hard things which I don’t really want to talk about. So they were all very uplifting, these traveling days. Even the fact that I missed my connecting flight in Frankfurt yesterday and had to spent 8 hours waiting for the next flight didn’t bother me overtly much. I had a brillinat book with me. And I was refreshed and inspired.

Thank you, Newbold.
These should last for a while.

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