Shipwrecked and Comatose

Red Dwarf fans will recognise the cultural reference here. It's exactly how I feel.

Somewhat prophetically my Facebook status this morning was: "Stephen wants to lie shipwrecked and comatose drinking fresh mango juice". Little did I realise how accurate that was going to be.

With the lecture timetable having finally kicked in I'm now getting accustomed to the rhythm of life for the next 8 weeks. This started last Thursday - with nothing timetabled for me. Friday had a couple of hours of 'Life and Service', where we looked at the content, shape and flow of the Communion service. Then it was the weekend!!

So far so good, not too stressful, and Monday continues that theme, where it's the afternoon before I settle down for a couple of hours of 'Christian Doctrine', in which we'll examine key areas of what Christianity actually believes. And that's where the fun stops.

Tuesdays are going to be my worst day, where I have a bit of every single module. Ethics, followed by double Gospel and Western Culture, followed by a Doctrine seminar, followed by Life and Service. There are breaks and lunch built in there somewhere, but during the afternoon sessions I was observed by my companions being comatose for short periods. It probably didn't help that in Doctrine we were talking about a particularly difficult passage by Archbishop Rowan Williams which very few of us had been able to make any sense of - thankfully the lecturers were struggling with it as much as us.

This evening I've been preparing the service for this week's College Communion where I'm helping lead the service. It's kept me out of trouble, as I sit on the sofa whilst Tash watches a film - the film seemed to fly past in five minutes as I grappled with the various liturgical options available to me....

Wednesdays look like they're going to be interesting - Gospel and Western Culture seminars and Double Ethics!