Things to like about Yale #1

Libraries.

Spacious and beautiful.  Air conditioned.  Well-lit. Full of open spaces and cosy corners in which to read.  

Comfortable leather arm chairs.  Tables at varying heights (from desk to coffee-table).  Friendly security guards who tell you to "have a nice day."  The Ministry Resources Centre at the Div School, with books, videos, music and just about any props you might need for every liturgical, pastoral or sartorial occasion (Bible board-game anyone? Tambourine? Angel wings?), and enthusiastic people to help you find them.  Listening stations (with headphones) in the music library.

Comparisons with Cambridge are inevitable, not least architecturally. The university library here is built like a cathedral (not a prison), and the Div School library like a country house (not a spaceship).

Things you don't have to do in a Yale library:

1. Leave your bag outside.

2. Walk around the perimeter of the room hoping to find a lamp with a bulb still working.

3. Hide your water bottle when a member of staff comes past.

4. Walk miles along and up/down several floors to find a toilet.

5. Develop backache due to inadequate seating.

6. Return books before you've finished with them because there's a limit of 10 (even I won't get to 200).

7. Expire from overheating or contract hypothermia.  (I'm assuming the latter - I've yet to experience winter here, but I suspect the heating will be both on and correctly functioning.)

8. Run around the city returning books to the various libraries whence they came.

9. Read the refectory menu five times before you find something you might want to eat.

10. Wish you were somewhere else.

The Big E

The Big E is an enormous fair, which grew out of the kind of county fair we might have at home.  The difference is that this one was for the whole of New England, that is the states of Connecticut (where we are in New Haven), New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and Massachusetts.  Each state had its own building displaying and selling its most famous wares: patchwork quilts were in abundance, as were knitted mittens, iced cakes, cowboy boots (in New England? even I know that can't be quite authentic), and multiple varieties of popcorn.  You could buy cream puffs in Connecticut, Raspberries in Rhode Island and checked flannel shirts in Vermont.

Outside there were acres of fairground rides, and mile upon mile (so it felt) of stores selling their wares, from garden jacuzzis to kitchen utensils to hippy-style silk dresses.

There were exhibition lawns with high school marching bands sporting brightly coloured uniforms and accompanied by flag-waving majorettes.  There were displays of American-style country dancing, of the kind seen in Oklahoma! and Carousel.  There was a "day-out-for-all-the-family" feel about the place; there were children (riding in pushchairs and little carts for parents to pull along) young people, young adults, parents, grandparents.

There was an "animal petting" zoo with sheep, goats and alpacas.  There was an indoor arena with a shire horse show.  There were displays by bee keepers, donkey rides, and a game show with teenage contestants featuring questions on horsemanship.

And everywhere one looked, there was food.  Carts and stalls sold baked potatoes, broccoli and cheese soup (a local speciality), and hot dogs.  There was all manner of sweet things: "fried dough" (deep fried doughnut mixture), candyfloss (made with maple sugar, as well as the pink synthetic variety), and miles of fudge.  You could eat food served on a stick: smoked salmon (a long chunk of fish rather than a strip - delicious), corn dogs (hot dogs covered in corn meal and deep fried) and chocolate-covered apples.  We were also introduced to funnel cake: doughnut dough squeezed through a tube and then - you guessed it - deep fried.

The first photo shows a man making a vat of popcorn - I think this was a New Hampshire tent. The second is Rebekah with Jenny and Alison (two Yalie friends) with our first experience of fried dough, which is sprinkled with icing sugar on one side and cinnamon sugar on the other.  

Road Trip

My apologies for not blogging for a while.  Work started properly and has been happily consuming my time.  More of that to follow.  But this weekend Rebekah and I took our first road trip (well, further than the nearest supermarket) to the neighbouring state of Massachusetts for the annual "Big E" - the New England fair.  

Before we got there, however, we stopped off at the national Dr Seuss Sculpture Garden, in honour of the author who penned The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham and Are You My Mother?  Rebekah is seen here befriending the Grinch.

Tail end of a hurricane

Yesterday New England caught the end of Hurricane Hanna, which has caused devastation in Haiti.  

The day felt very hot and humid.  It was almost like arriving at Doha airport at 3 am last summer and feeling as if we were in a steam room with a hairdryer.  Except that this was perhaps without the hairdryer (and I never worked out whether that had been the weather or the aeroplane).  It was such a relief when the rain finally broke in the afternoon, and then it rained spectacularly well into the night.

I was at the Berkeley Centre (where the Anglican studies programme is based) for a welcome picnic (indoors, obviously).  More than one person said to me, "You must feel at home now that it's raining!"  Clearly, Britain has a rainy reputation.  In any case, I was definitely not the only person in that room appreciating the rain!

I couldn't get over the intensity of it all - the humidity, the rain, and all this was when the hurricane (reduced to a storm by this time) was barely even near us.

Term starts

I don't recall ever having had this experience before ... of wanting to jump up and down with excitement on first seeing the titles on a reading list.  There may have been occasions when I've wanted to jump up and down with excitement whilst actually reading those books (as my long-suffering friends and housemates will attest), but no, on reflection, I don't think it's ever happened before I've even opened them.

Actually getting into the class is even more exciting.  There is a 'shopping' period for the first fortnight, at the end of which you register formally for classes.  Whilst this is good on one level (you can try things out before you commit to them), it does prolong the bewilderment of such a dazzling array of courses for a further fortnight.  For someone as indecisive as I am, this is not helpful.  There is simply too much choice, which is made even more agonizing by the complication of there being at least three classes you want to go to, all meeting at the same time.  And then you discover (for example) that:

1) the class you decided to go to is actually full; 

2) because you missed your second choice you're now behind with the reading; and 

3) the Div school bookstore has sold out of the textbooks for that class.  

Added to which, there is the pressure (internal, I think) on myself and my Westcott colleagues, that since we are only here for one semester, we need to make the most of our time here.  But it's hard to work out what 'making the most of our time' means, when you are faced with so many interesting things to do.

This week has involved, at least for Rebekah and myself, a certain amount of stress as we try to work out what we want to do and how to make that work (Dawn seems to have sailed through relatively stress-free, and since Paul is here as a 'spouse' rather than a 'student', he seems to be enjoying whichever classes he decides to go to).  I've had a couple of days of feeling overwhelmed, but my conversations with other incoming students indicate that I am not alone in this respect!  

But now it's nearly sorted, things are settling down.  Or, rather, revving up.  This week I had my first preaching class, which was the reason I wanted to come to Yale in the first place.  Working in a beautiful library made me remember that I do enjoy studying after all (quite a relief!).  And to sit in an Old Testament class and be allowed (even encouraged) to study the poetry and contemporary application of a text, is an experience hitherto unknown in my studies in Cambridge.  (Except for my supervisions with Andrew at Westcott, but even he had to warn me that it wouldn't help me pass my exams.)  And so, as I consider heading out to a graduates' pizza party (the provision of food doesn't seem to have abated), I'm still jumping up and down with excitement.

Perhaps I need to calm down.