I'm in the City!

Yes, indeed, I made it. I'll regale you all with the tales of my travels perhaps tomorrow, but wanted to tell you that I'm having a good time and really looking forward to my class. In addition to having spent the summer at church with Cathy, I'm getting to know some classmates pretty well. I also have an amazing suitemate.
I'm blogging so late because I can't sleep, but I plan on blogging more regularly. I just think about Judy Dye checking my blog and she'll have an upper hand in conversations about the ongoings of my life if I blog them...for her and for other Troy people. I know some of my more recent Facebook friends might be embarrassed by what I write, but hey, if Michael can tweet things I can blog them, right? I also want to keep a record, and I think that blogging is a good place to do that. I'm going to try some new things with my blog, too:

• blogging things that I post on Facebook - this means links, videos, articles, others' blog entries, whatever. I want the information that I share that way to be made available other ways, too. That might mean a lot more content, but it will be nice for me to share doubly.
• blogging more regular daily events - so that I can remember what I did and so that others can keep up. We'll see how well I do on this one, as that it's pretty much always my goal to blog more, and it has yet to happen up to this point.
• blogging reflections - on biblical texts, on services, on hymns, on sermons, on news (church and secular), on things that happen in my life, on books that I'm reading and their affect on me, on things for which I am grateful, on things about which I've prayed, on things for which I need prayer.
• blogging things on my mind - mostly song lyrics, probably, but other media that I don't necessarily post on Facebook, such as quotations from books I've read or am reading but that stick with me and cause me to meditate, but posting them little or no commentary, just them in their typed or linked form.

I'm up so late because I prayed Compline with two guys in my class and then we sat and sang hymns a capella for at least an hour and a half, maybe longer. It was like singing Sacred Harp, but just singing what we had available...and it was great. We made up harmonies, we used the harmonies in the hymnals, we sang in unison. I look forward to more of it, and hope that others in our class will be able to join. I hope that the de facto separations between the two sides of the Chapel of the Good Shepherd and the Close and 422 don't stay too intact as we get more people from our class in and moving around.
We closed with
Lord of all gentleness, Lord of all calm,
whose voice is contentment, whose presence is balm
be there at our sleeping and give us we pray
your peace in our hearts Lord at the end of the day.
Let us bless the Lord.
Thanks be to God.