Brum, Lecture, & Classes

Another week, but we are nearing the last weeks of our time at the Daniel House. As we are starting the month of April everyone is starting to feel the end is coming and no one is ready. We had our last vocation class meeting were Jo and I talked to the students about how things are going to be strange as they return to the US in another month, and they will go through something called reverse culture shock. I shared Becky’s and mine experience with it when we came back from British Columbia Canada and working with native American people for the summer. It was a strange class, and some feelings were all shared.

Becky packed up and she was heading off to Brum to help baby sit Jamie on Tuesday. Fiona usually does this, but she and Perry are off to Spain for couple weeks. Becky and I first went off to grab some lunch, but the place we wanted to eat at has permanently closed, so we choose the very British Five Guys Burger and Fries. People over here really do love the place. They are all over city of London. We then rode the tube over to the Marylebone station. Neither of us had been there so it was nice to see a new place. We a bit of time to kill so since it was another sunny spring day we walked over to Regions Park. Then Becky got on the train and headed off to Birmingham.

I got back and that evening Tom and I went to hear an interview with historian author Tom Holland. He was interviewed by author Robert Harris. Tom had gotten the tickets for him and his father-in-law to attend, but he was unable to make it, so he asked me. We rode the tube out to Richmond and the event was in the Richmond Theatre. Becky and I had seen the outside of theatre back in early February when we came out and spent a day in Richmond. It was wonderful to see the inside of the theatre. It was very nice. The interview was about Tom Holland’s translation of Roman historian Suetonius’ book “The Lives of the Caesars”. It was a very interesting discussion about 12 of the Caesars from Julis Caesar to Domitian. We both learned a great deal and also learned we really do not know much about this time of history. I really appreciated Tom asking me to attend with him and I really enjoyed our time together.

The next day I had my class, and we talked about networking. After discussing at the Daniel House, we walked over to the Science Museum, and I walked the students through the exhibit I had found the week before. It is so amazing to be able to show the actually computing devices and machines that have been created in history to the students. They seem to really appreciate it as well and having the opportunity to teach this class here has really helped me be better prepared to teach it even back on campus.

The rest of the day was just business things and grading, but it was till a wonderful day.