Great news...

I'm off to Iona!! And soooooo excited about it. I can't believe it, I had almost given up hope... I'll be off to Scotland for eight weeks starting on the 13th of September and staying till the 7th of November. I'm going. I am actually going. Amazing!!

Good news on a different front: The Welsh Assembly are giving £2.7m to boost the number of British Sign Language Interpreters adding another 34 people to the (shocking) 12 that currently work in Wales. That is such good news!

OLYMPICS!!!

I've started to watch the Olympics this year, much to my surprise. Sports, me? Though I guess watching some every four years isn't toooo worrying. (And it is about every four years as I've yet to get as excited about the summer equivalent.) There is the added excitement too that Finland has a better chance in actually getting some medals in the Winter Olympics... At the last count it is one silver and two bronze medals! Go Finland!

The main attraction for me is, as always, the figure skating. I love watching it!! To my everlasting joy I found out that Evgeny Plushenko is still involved in the competition and after the short programme is in the lead with a resounding 11 point lead!! He is my hero so it's great to see him do so well. It is a bit odd not to have Alexei Yagudin there, and the competition wasn't quite as nerve-wracking (but that's probably better for my nails:). Watching the few crumbs that BBC sport deign to throw us have reminded me of many happy hours I used to spend watching figure skating, even to the detriment of my mock finals at school if I remember correctly! The beauty and excitment keep me enthralled - now all I need is to find someone with digital tv who's not going to mind me living on their sofa for the next week or so...

Highfalutin book clubs

I had to look that word up in the dictionary!!! And I don't think it can be taken as a compliment either... (however, in the process I did find another great word: sesquipedalian so it wasn't all to waste:) Its hard enough understanding Lesslie Newbigin without being insulted by the Linden newsletter... or trying not to be daunted by the fact I am the only female in a room of six intelligent men and a cute hampster.

Whinging aside, I really enjoyed it. It is a good book that we read, and the motivation of having somewhere to talk about it afterwards was useful. It meant I took more time to understand it and think about it too. Although there was so much in that book I think we could have easily spent more than one evening on it! I do prefer the option of bouncing ideas and thoughts off people as then hopefully my misunderstandings can get cleared and I do generally get new insights from people. That fantastic phrase "plausibility structures" is a real joy! And it is good to know that using one's brain isn't (always) a cardinal sin...

Can't wait for the next one!