It's been a while since I've written properly.
These past few weeks have been full of hectic chaos. In that time I've started working full time, went camping, gained a fiancée, went to the International Congress of Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, and returned to working full time. And then Sunday a friend of mine will be arriving from BC via Sarnia, so I will be picking her up from the train late at night. It will be pretty awesome. Sadly, that same night while I am yet at church, my newly gained fiancée will be returning to England. Ah well, I shall see her soon again in August when I finally get to cross the big water myself for the first time.
Pardon me while I take a paragraph or two to brag about proposing and the cunning that went into it. A few months ago, a friend of Alison and myself knew I was planning to propose to Ali and suggested that I do so up at a campsite where she has been going her entire life. This campground is very important to her. So I asked our friend to talk with her and see how she felt about it, because I did not wish to overload her with arriving in Canada and then going camping right away. Before too long, Ali seemed excited about the idea. After a long list of things that could have gone wrong (work booking me during the camping time, the ring not getting back from the sizers, etc.) everything fell more or less into place. Alison returned on 2nd May and the day after we drove up to the campground with her, our friend, and two other friends. We were staying in a cabin because it would be warmer and more enjoyable. On Sunday, 4th May, we had a full day up there which we were enjoying a lot. At some point I asked Ali if she'd like to go for a walk with just the two of us as a chance to be together alone. She agreed that we'd go on that walk in the afternoon. Later we left and took one of the trails. After walking for a short bit she stopped at the crest of a hill. And I had the sense that that was the time for it, and knelt and asked her to marry me. It was generally a very shaky and wonderful experience. We then sat on a rock for a while, happy. Later, after she got over the shock that the whole camping trip was not just a convenient timing to propose but in fact entirely for the purpose of proposing, we went back up for some pictures, and she proposed to me with a gorgeous clockwork pocket watch. We plan to get it engraved with the date: 4th May, 2008. She is wonderful and we are both very happy and looking to get married the August after I graduate.
After we got back from camping (we left the day after), we had a day before leaving to the ICMS in Kalamazoo. That was a wonderfully awesome conference. I know I did not get as much out of it as others, but I am slowly defining my interests so that I will get more out of such conferences in the future. I find I keep returning to fables and children's literature. I like the magic of a story; especially a story that relates to the world. I feel more driven to fix up that paper I wrote on Bernardus Silvestris's Cosmographia and the Asclepius. I'd like to prep it to make an abstract to present next year at Kalamazoo. I also would like to consider a paper on C.S. Lewis. I think there is more that can be done with his work than has been done. Everyone likes to focus on Tolkien, but I am sure that there is work to be done yet with Lewis and the fabula (not fabliaux!).
Alison met a fellow in her rather small field who was very enjoyable named Greg. He was great to visit with and I'm sure the two of them will help each other with scholarship. I'm looking forward to picking up some Signed English from him at some point in the future.
Anyway, that is all for now.
17 May 2008
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