After spending most of the day at Blenheim Palace last Saturday, I had to crank down on some homework. I spent most of Sunday punching out an essay that was due the next week. Got about halfway through before turning in for the night. Felt pretty good going into a new week ahead of the game after having a great trip to Blenheim Palace. Which made Monday morning even worse.

Monday: Bad news…

I woke up Monday morning and flipped open my Macbook before studying a bit of Greek and heading off to class. I was a little curious when my screen didn’t flicker on, but stayed black instead. Tried a couple different things. Checked the power cord. Tried to restart. No dice. My computer was dead. Not a good way to start the week.

I visited the Oxford University Computer Services offices after Greek. Hoping they’d have some good news for me. They did. And they didn’t. They told me that this was probably a known issue. Failure of the graphics board (of course). Which should be covered by Apple’s warranty. That was the good news.

The bad news was that they wouldn’t be able to get to this for about a week. Best case scenario. Which meant the the work for the essay I had managed to get about halfway through, the one that was due that afternoon, would be worthless to me. That and my five-days worth of reading notes that were saved on my computer. Perfect.

I spent the next seven hours seated at a computer in the library trying to piece together my essay from memory. Which would probably work better for someone with a memory. I managed to put something together and send it off just before my deadline, though. Part of me felt like maybe I could do this more often and save myself five days’ worth of reading. But I figured that’d probably not be such a great idea.

Thursday: My experience with Computer Services and An American explaining Thanksgiving

I was happy to get an e-mail Thursday morning, telling me I could bring my laptop in to get checked out. They don’t let you just drop it off when things go down. “We’d have computers piled up everywhere,” I was told.

I dropped it off Thursday afternoon. After my lecture that morning. I figured I’d just go in, drop it off and I’d be out of there. But that wasn’t the case. I told the lady at the front desk I had received an e-mail from Darren and I was here to drop my computer off with him. She looked at me suspiciously, like I was trying to pull one over on her. They must get a lot of people wanting to pile up broken computers around Darren. And she was having none of it.

She asked me if I had filled out the paperwork and paid my £30 deposit for repairs. I hadn’t done either. “Well come over here and you can fill that out,” she said, directing to me to a table on the opposite side of the room.

“Perfect,” I thought to myself. After 15 minutes of navigating their online payment system, tracking down my computer’s serial number and filling out the paperwork, I made my way back to this sweetheart of a lady’s desk to hand off my computer to Darren. If she’d let me.

“Oh, it looks like he’s gone to lunch now,” she said with a look of feigned disappointment. “If you’d like to come back in a half our or so, he should be back then.”

I didn’t want to go anywhere. All I wanted to do was leave my computer. 30 minutes, I figured I could get some studying done here just as well as the library.

“I’ll just have a seat over here and study some Greek, if that’s okay?”

“Yes, of course,” she said with a smile. “He should be back around 1:00.”

An hour later, Darren made his way out of the back room and asked if he could help me. I was pretty glad to see him. I was beginning to develop a twitch at this point.

I brought my computer to him as he looked at my paperwork. He asked if I had paid the £30. I told him I had. He told me it didn’t look like I needed to, that it was covered under warranty.

“Awesome,” I said.

“Well we’ll check it out and get you a refund if that’s the case.”

Darren was a nice guy. I could see why more people would want to take the time to stop in and pile up their laptops around here.

An American Explaining Thanksgiving

We went to small group at Church Thursday night. We’ve really enjoyed getting to know the folks there.

They have dinner beforehand, and we usually end up sitting by people we don’t know. So we get to meet new people that way.

We found a seat by Martin this week (Martin’s from Scotland). And an American girl. From DC. She’s studying here for a term. A guy from South Africa sat down at our table shortly after us. He looked like Dirk Nowitzki‘s doppleganger. Although about a foot shorter. It was quite the international bunch.

The American girl asked us if we had any plans for Thanksgiving. We didn’t, we told her. She lives with 40 other Americans, so it sounds like they’re bringing Thanksgiving to England in full force. She was pretty excited.

Martin asked what was so great about Thanksgiving.

“Everything,” she said, with big eyes and a smile, looking to us for support.

“Yeah, I mean, if you like food, family and football. American football. It’s a pretty great day,” I said.

“What exactly is Thanksgiving all about, again?” Martin asked the girl beside us.

“It’s about celebrating the fact that we won!” she said loudly.

“Oh my,” I thought to myself. “This isn’t going to be good.”

The guy from South Africa seated across from us didn’t seem too impressed. Turns out he wasn’t.

“That surprises me,” he spoke up. “In South Africa, I don’t think we’d joke about something from our history like that.” He wasn’t smiling in the least.

The blood drained from this girl’s face. It was obvious what she had meant to communicate and what had come out were two totally different things.

“I’m sorry. I was just joking. I’m really sorry if I offended you,” she said to this guy from South Africa with a look of sincerity.

“Oh, no, you didn’t,” he said with a look of half-sincerity. “Well, maybe a little.”

He cleaned his plate and made his way back to the kitchen for some second helpings.

The girl looked over to us with a look of horror. Martin smiled.

“Who exactly did you beat, by the way? The Indians?…”

“That’s totally not what I meant…” she confessed. “I’m totally fulfilling the stereotype.”

I told the girl I was going to pick up a “God Bless America” t-shirt the next time I was home. And wear it around Oxford. To compete with her impression of Americans in England. She laughed. Jen shook her head.

Friday: Ruining God’s plan and a pink laptop in the library

Lyndon told me after Greek Friday morning that he was going to be preaching at his old church in London in a couple weeks. And that he was going to have to get started on that over the weekend.

I asked him what he was speaking on.

“Deuteronomy 22,” he said. “The scene where Abraham pretends Sarah’s his sister, and not his wife. So the King wouldn’t kill him and take her for himself. To protect himself.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked, with a scrunched brow. “So what’s the application?”

“The application is great,” he explained to me. “First, it reminds us that no one’s perfect. Abraham is seen as this great figure, and here he is doing something completely foolish.”

I nodded. Seemed like a good reminder.

“But also, it reminds us that no matter how bad we mess up, God is in control,” he continued. “Jesus was to be a descendant from Sarah, in order to fulfill his role as the Messiah, and Abraham’s foolishness threatened that. He very well could’ve messed it all up, but God carried out His plan. And He still does so, in spite of our shortcomings.”

It was a good reminder, to be sure. Particularly for someone like me who constantly worries I’m going to fall flat on my face and ruin all of this. That I’m totally going to spoil God’s plans for my life. For our life. By some huge failure on my part. Or lack of faith.

It’s good to be reminded that God is bigger than my failures.

A pink laptop in the library

I spent most of the day Friday in the library. My laptop wasn’t back from the shop, and I had to take down some notes from the books I’d be reading, so I resorted to borrowing Jen’s laptop for the day. Her pink laptop. I may be colorblind, but this was still a tad outside of my comfort zone. Unfortunately, I had no choice. Pink laptop it was.

I managed to get through most of the afternoon without thinking too much about it. Plugging away on my reading and jotting down some notes. I was feeling pretty good about myself, and shrugging off the few glances I got from time to time. Though I was pretty happy to be wearing a wedding ring at this point, just to avoid any confusion. I thought about putting up a sign over the desk I was working from that read, “It’s my wife’s…”, but I decided against it.

I always listen to music while I’m studying. Even when I’m reading. It helps me focus and zone out any other noise. Weird, I know. But it works for me.

At one point while I was reading, I realized a Taylor Swift song had come up on my playlist. “What in the world,” I thought to myself, quickly switching to the next song.

“That’s just what I need,” thinking to myself, “for my music to somehow switch from my earphones to my external speakers and start blaring Taylor Swift from my pink laptop in the middle of the library…”

It was about halfway through the afternoon when I noticed a woman in her 40’s working across from me. With the same pink laptop. She was looking over at the computer I was working from.

“Perfect…” I thought silently.

I received an e-mail from the Computer Services just a few minutes after that awkwardness. Telling me my computer was fixed (under warranty, no less). I didn’t waste anytime photocopying the rest of the reading I had to do and getting out of there.

I arrived at home earlier than Jen had been expecting me.

“You’re home early,” she said with a look of surprise on her face.

“Yeah, well, I was a little uncomfortable working on a pink computer in the library. But sitting across from a woman with the same pink computer was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me.”

She rocked back her head and let out a loud laugh.

Saturday: Pembertons take a Trip to Bath

Vanessa got a hold of Jen earlier in the week. To let her know she was going to Bath with some friends and their spouses this weekend. And that they’d love to have us join them, if we wanted. Jen had a look at some photos of Bath online and she was sold.

Rob and Vanessa are the couple from Seattle who had us over for dinner a couple weeks back. Rob’s doing his MBA here at Oxford. Vanessa was a nurse at Children’s hospital before coming over. They’re a lot of fun, and we were excited to take this trip with them. And excited to see Bath.

We woke up early Saturday morning, booked a couple bus passes and we were on our way. Vanessa scooted onto the full bus with a couple girlfriends shortly after we had boarded and found some seats several rows ahead of us. Rob had a rowing race that day, so he would not be joining us. I was one of two “spouses” on the trip, but it was a blast anyway. I was very happy to go and see the city. It was much better than the library.

Bath is a great city. It’s about a two-hour’s drive west of Oxford. Southwest, I believe. And it’s built in a valley, which means it has beautiful, 360-degree views of hills. And there’s a river that runs right through town. It’s pretty picturesque.

The City is quite old. The Romans were stationed here at one point in their conquest. And they ended up building these incredible Bathhouses up around the natural hotsprings that are found here in Bath. Thus the name.

We got off the bus and found our way around town, armed with several iPhones. There were nine of us. None of us had been to Bath before.

Jen noticed this storefront sign and made me stop so she could snap this photo, in light of my pink laptop experience.

I was less than happy about it.

One of the first places we stopped at was Bath Abbey. A very old church built in the city center. Near the Roman bathhouse. It was an incredible church. With a huge wall devoted almost solely to stained glass windows.

We were handed an information pamphlet as we entered the church. We didn’t know anything about it, but apparently it’s a pretty popular tourist spot.

I couldn’t believe how high the ceilings climbed when we walked in. I quickly found my jaw dragging on the ground behind us.

The information packet pointed out different points of interest in the church. And it spoke a lot about Jesus. It put a smile on my face.

I found myself walking through this incredible building, built more than 500 years ago, with my nose in this information pamphlet. Reading about Jesus. I had to pull myself away from the yellow, photo-copied tri-fold to take it all in.

The stained glass windows on the far side of the church portray something like 70 different scenes of Jesus’ life. It was terribly impressive.

Jen snapped this photo in a mirror in the middle of the church to show the ornate ceiling architecture.

I found myself wondering what it’d be like to worship here week in and week out. And how long it’d take to get so used to it that you didn’t even think twice about what an incredible building it was.

Our next stop was the heart of the city. The Roman Baths.

The entrance to the Bath houses was very modern. The decor was pretty impressive, with lots of white, ornate crown moulding and dangling chandeliers.

We paid our admission fees (of course), and began our tour. We were handed small radios we were to hang around our necks. The digital display would be used to punch in numbers according to each location along our tour, which would correspond with the appropriate informative tour guide segment. British accent and all.

The Baths were great. It felt like we were traveling back in time.

You enter the bathing area and quickly feel the warm air wafting off the hot springs, contrasting with the cool outside air. I can only imagine how great a place this would have been in its time. Crowded with people fighting to get a good spot.

The Romans built this bathhouse around 70 AD, the audio tour guide told us. Around the same time Luke penned his Gospel account. Crazy.

I thought about the history of the bathhouse as we walked along the stones lining the pool. About the fact that the Romans had enjoyed lounging in this place around 2000 years ago, and now we were here. It was pretty wild.

I asked one of the staff members who was standing nearby how many people they had to pull out of the pool on a given month.

“More than you’d think,” she said with a laugh. “But it’s mostly on accident. People taking a photo and stepping backward into the waters. And kids getting too close mostly.”

I had to fight back a serious urge to cannonball into the pool most of the time we were there, which subsided after hearing about the tests they had to run on anyone who went into the waters. To make sure they didn’t pick up any bacterial infection.

Vanessa was kind enough to snap photos of Jen and I throughout the day. So we didn’t have to bug other people. It was a nice change of pace.

We snapped this photo of Vanessa (on the left) and her friend Camille from back home.

They loved the Baths, as well. Camille said she just wanted to sit by the waters for a while.

It really was great. The Romans had it figured out.

We found these bathing instructions posted on the way out. Even though we couldn’t actually use the baths. Seemed a bit like false advertising to me.

It was after 2:00 by the time we finished touring the Baths houses. We were all pretty hungry. We looked for a place to eat for some time before settling on an Indian place.

“You guys like Indian food?” they asked us, making sure we were okay with the choice before going in.

“Never had it,” Jen replied.

“You really are from Bellingham,” Camille laughed.

It was the first time Jen and I had Indian food together. (I had had it once before and wasn’t a fan). But the food was great. So many flavors… And colors.

Somehow we got on the topic of cheese during the meal. One of the gals was talking about how much she loved it.

“Except for Goat Cheese,” she said. “I can’t do it.”

“Me neither,” I said. “The smell does me in every time, and the taste isn’t any better.”

“Not me,” Vanessa chimed in. “I love Goat’s Cheese. I could make out with it.”

Everyone laughed. We were the only ones in the Indian Place. It was huge, too, which made it seem even emptier than it was. It had large, vaulted ceilings, and large windows that overlooked the alleys below.

Indian music played over speakers hidden somewhere in the restaurant. Music that seemed to put me in a trance. I felt like I was in a dream state. It made the great food sit even better than it would’ve otherwise, I thought to myself. Rocking me like a lullaby.

Bath was strung up with lights in preparation for Christmas. It was beautiful.

Vanessa snagged Jen’s camera as we walked through the city center streets. Doing her best paparazzi impression. Peeking out from behind street vendor displays to steal photos of Jen and I.

I’m not sure who’s idea this one was…

We walked around the city center for a couple hours before making our way to the bus station to board. Bath is a beautiful city, to be sure, and we’d love to go back.

We were more than satisfied with our Saturday as we took our seats aboard the warm bus. The lights inside the bus dimmed as we pulled away from the city center. Careening through the country roads, we quickly found ourselves slipping away into a comforting, late afternoon nap. The high-back bus seats holding us in a hug, the roads rocking us slowly to sleep.

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