Avoidance Tactics

So we've got past the end of lectures, and we're now into full essay writing mode. At least, we're trying to be. Just to help us fill out our precious reading and writing time there's plenty of things to help us postpone the inevitable.

Lectures finished on Wednesday. On Thursday morning there was a short meeting about a mission trip - only an hour, but add a cup of tea at both ends and that's a good 2 hours out of the way. In the afternoon there was a meeting of all the students (known as the 'Common Room meeting'), where we discussed weighty matters such as the financial and physical state of the college punt. I just know that if I'd gone to any other college I wouldn't have had to be worried about a punt! More tea, more time taken. A bit of reading and suddenly it's time to go home.

Friday was a College Quiet Day - each staircase does something prayerful and sociable. I'll write more about that in another article, but suffice to say that a lovely day in Coventry doesn't get much essay writing done.

Saturday and Sunday being the weekend are family time, and we haven't yet got to Emergency Essay Status so it was quite easy not to work. On Saturday evening one of our lecturers was having an Advent Party so we took a car full of students who all gawped at his converted church out in the middle of nowhere - it's like something out of a magazine. We're all incredibly covetous now.

Today (Monday) we had a Short Course (all morning) on Child Protection. Kind of ironic that I left my belt at home and spent much of this course pulling my trousers up. The afternoon involved a combination of filing, e-mailing and reading. When I eventually sat down with a book I did manage to speed read a 190 page book in an afternoon. I'm now about as knowledgeable as I'd like to be about the persecution of the Christians by the Roman Empire. Until tomorrow, when after another Short Course ('Reading Scripture Out Loud') - I'll read two more books on the Romans! And after that I intend to write the essay on them.