It's been almost 2 months since the move. I think we've more or less settled in to some sort of routine. I've settled into a routine since my day-to-day doesn't change weekly like Jack's does. Here's a general life update organized by the beverage I've come to associate most closely with it.
Coffee
No grad student will ever doubt that coffee is always in the back of their mind. We don't have a coffee maker (few people I know do). Every morning the first thing I do is turn on our electric kettle to heat up the water for the French Press. I miss the ease of programming a coffee maker, but I suppose the French Press makes a better cup. I have a Starbucks Houston mug so the Houston skyline greets me every morning as I start to wake up. Our office now has a larger French Press and coffee has become a regular occurrence for us well. It's quickly becoming a feature of my Fridays when I have back to back classes. Coffee is also a regular part of my meetings with my supervisors, which makes me think that coffee is slowly going to just be completely integrated into all hours of my life from now on.
Cherry Coke
For those in Texas, yes, Dr. Pepper does exist in Scotland and can be located easily at grocery stores. Alas, Jack says that it has a funny taste because of the sweetener. His drink of choice is Cherry Coke, although he also just bought a liter of Fanta. His classes are going well. The business school is on a 3 week module system. He has a reading week (with a few class meetings), followed by an intensive class week (around 35 hours), and then a week where he's writing papers. The major downside to this as far as life goes is that it's difficult getting into a schedule with him. I'm on campus from 7:45-5:30 (ish) everyday but his hours on campus vary widely. But most nights we do intersect at dinner, which is great and a decompression of the day, which is brief because then any chores that need to get done have to happen and the whole process starts over again. Thankfully we've discovered that the grocery store delivers and doesn't charge much of a fee if you order a lot so we're able to order big, heavy loads (like Cherry Coke) every so often and it's cutting down the number of times I'm walking to the grocery store to buy things other than fresh food.
Whiskey
I'm not a big fan of it, but almost everyone else is. And by everyone else, I mean that the graduate students routinely have "whiskey socials." I can comfortable sip on a single dram of it for a good hour. The nice thing is that it is an intentional gathering and break from our work to hang out. During the week I really only see my office mates and the people in my ethics seminar. Having a chance to connect with the other graduate students in the department is welcomed. I've discovered that most Divinity students have a very keen and dry sense of humor. It's fabulous.
Tea
To say that tea is a social necessity in the United Kingdom is almost like saying that fish need water to survive. The number of teas available in the grocery store is equal to the number of teas available at Central Market or Whole Foods. Sarah and I went to afternoon tea last week. Whoever comes and visits us will be subjected to this delicious ritual. You each get a pot of tea (or coffee or hot chocolate) and an array of cute sandwiches, scones, and pastries. Then you just sit and drink tea and eat the feast before you and talk. I've recently realized that I am slightly less awkward when I have something to drink in my hand. I want to believe it's because holding a drink restricts my hand motions so it tempers what I say. I have no actual idea, but I'm keeping my water bottle or coffee mug with me at all times now. But tea- the Aberdeen Divinity Women's group has had a few get togethers, many as play dates, but a few as reasons to drink tea or coffee and converse. It's been fun getting to know my colleagues families as a result since the group is largely composed of the wives of the divinity students. We've gone to the farmer's market, the highlands, and ex-pat Thanksgiving (soon) with the friends we are making.
Champagne
I have an office! My desk is pretty recognizable because the wall in front of it is neatly composed of 25 pictures from home (there's a good chance there's a picture of you up there...). More importantly, I have amazing office mates. Despite the low number of women in the department, our office is all women and very girly as a result. Joy brought prosecco in to celebrate once all 4 of us had actually moved in and gotten settled. Four people in a single office would feel small, but instead it feels homey. It's a group that can talk about complex theological issues and very mundane things. Katie and Joy are both Scottish, which has helped me understand the accent better since I hear it more frequently (our department is overwhelmingly American and of that group, a fair number of Texans).
Books
Okay, not a drink, but I am drinking in books. My day is pretty filled with reading one thing or another. By the end of the semester I'm assuming I'll have read 20+ books and several more papers. There has yet to be a day that I'm not reading something and my suitcase at Christmas will partially be filled with books since many are not available on kindle. Right now (for anyone interested) I'm working through Bonhoeffer's Creation and Fall, Barth's Dogmatics III.4, a few books on Bonhoeffer and MLK Jr./South Africa, Lutherans Against Hitler, and Ristchl's Institutes for the Christian Religion, as well Brian Brock's unpublished work on Creation and Sin for the course I'm auditing. If that list makes you think, "wow Claire- you're reading a lot of sad/depressing books!" you would be right. I'm currently crouched in the Holocaust and the failings of the Confessing Church. Eventually I think I'll move into happier books...
Wine
We're in a culture of communion and liturgy. I think we've found a church home for the foreseeable future. As much as I am still very determined to be a CBF Baptist, while in Scotland we're going to be Episcopalian (I'm told it's not Anglican since we aren't in England). St. John the Evangelist was the first church we visited since it's where Chris and Sarah attend. It is very different from South Main. There's a structured liturgy that I'm growing to appreciate the more that I'm part of it. There's a comfort in the rhythm of the service. My primary disappointment is that the hymns are more or less completely different than the ones I'm used to and I miss the familiarity of that music. Another difference is that we take communion every week. Last week one of the classes I'm auditing visited St. Andrew's Cathedral and had a tour of the symbolism of the church architecture and decoration. Since St. Andrew's is Episcopalian a lot of the architecture translates to St. John's and I had a new appreciation for it as I went forward to receive the elements. And they use wine instead of grape juice here. I've also gotten into the routine of getting to campus early enough for morning prayers. In a way that I took for granted at Truett, I like the intentional community gathering to pray. There aren't many of us on any given day, but we read through a liturgy in unison. It's a poignant reminder that theology can't be divorced from the church because everything we say is nuanced with the struggles of theologians to come to terms and express something inexpressible.
And that's basically the update of our life here. We miss everyone (and the kitties- although Jessica has routinely been updating me on Billy and sending me pictures). I'm desperate to know what it happening in everyone's life so please email/Facebook/WhatsApp/iMessage/carrier pigeon/snail mail me! (and many thanks to those who have been in constant communication with me).
This week is The Freedom of the Christian Ethicists conference and the next two days are going to be a whirlwind of paper presentations. Hopefully we'll get to go and adventure somewhere soon. Our friends keep taking trips by train and I'm itching to do so as well, there just hasn't been a break yet.
I'll try to keep more updates coming. In the meantime, enjoy this new gem of a song that I found yesterday (in all honesty I bought it on iTunes because the title of the song was amazing) and have a dance break in my honor. Dance breaks on the walks to and from campus are part of my self-care.
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