Happy holidays

Hi everyone,

It's been a good Christmas for Beth and me, I hope you, my friends, are all well and are enjoying your holidays.

We have spent that past week at Beth's parents' house which has been lovely. The days were occupied with eating, walking along the canal in Carnforth (there was a beautiful swan family - mother, father, and teenager). We saw Beth's brother and his family on the 21st which was also a treat.

I had a pretty good haul from Santa this year: a couple pairs of desperately needed blue jeans, a winter coat, some candy, soap, etc. and two excellent bottles of wine, as well as a portable wine bibber's kit, complete with shoulder-strap, handkerchiefs, corkscrew, plastic wine glasses, etc.

We did a lot of reading by the fire as well, and I read Dostoyevsky's The Idiot. Unlike Crime and Punishment, it starts of happy and ends up very, very sad. For this reason I prefer Crime and Punishment.

Finally, I had a very good piece of news arrive the day before I left for Carnforth. I was accepted for the postgrad program I applied for at the London School of Economics. I can't remember if I've already blogged about applying there, but it's an MSc in Comparative Politics, with a focus on Nationalism and Ethnicity - my favorite subject. This was really exciting because LSE is 'the business'. Thus, if the Lord wills it I will be moving to London in July and starting classes at the LSE in September. I'm now going to do a bit of bragging about it because when I lived in Canada I didn't have a clue what the London School of Economics was and this way you all can understand why I'm excited. Something like 13 nobel prize winners have gone there and around 40 world leaders including JFK and Pierre Trudeau. The professors there are basically celebrities, and the course leaders for the degree I've applied for are the best there is.

Needless to say, nothing is ever set in stone. There are a number of very large hurdles, and like I said, it very well might not be in God's plan. Anyways, it was exciting just to be offered a place. Hopefully though, things will work out, pray for me about that if you will.