TheLionRampant.net

Tomorrow is the first day of my first, real, live teaching position! I have English 101 (Composition) and English 100 (a remedial version of the same) both in the afternoon. Stories to follow!

There may be some similarities here…

1. One book that changed your life: Michael Horton’s Putting Amazing Back into Grace is probably the sole book apart from the Bible that had a life-changing effect on me.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once: I’m such a slow reader that I seldom reread books. As Ash noted, we have begun the Chronicles of Narnia again. Oh, and I read Putting Amazing Back into Grace twice. I wonder if that can be my answer for every one of these questions…

3. One book you’d want on a desert island: I’d probably figure out how to survive on my own, so I’d want a book that would keep my mind occupied. Any book by anyone whose last name in Plantinga should fit the bill.

4. One book that made you laugh: I’m a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson (who, I just learned when I searched for his website, looks nothing like what I thought he would).

5. One book that made you cry: Ummmm, I really can’t think of anything. Sad.

6. One book that you wish had been written: A book chronicling the rise of downtown Los Angeles’ as a vital urban centre. Maybe in 25 years.

7. One book that you wish had never been written: The Prayer of Jabez. Definitely.

8. One book you’re currently reading: Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview by Albert M. Wolters.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: Just one? I’ve got a whole stack!

10. Now tag five people: You.

As every Christian blogger around has used “The Bible” as the answer to most of these questions — rightly of course — but to make it all the more interesting, I’m excluding that answer for the time being.

1. One book that changed your life: Theologically it would have to be Michael Horton’s Putting Amazing Back into Grace; sadly I can’t seem to remember the first book that awakened the literary geek in me, but confirmations of my fascination with stories came with Henry James’s Portrait of a Lady.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once: I’m currently re-reading with Bryce the Narnia books; the next book I plan to re-read is Alistair Macleod’s No Great Mischief.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island: Something like Surviving on a Desert Island for Dummies, or didn’t Restoration Hardware have some such book at one point?

4. One book that made you laugh: Anything by Bill Bryson.

5. One book that made you cry: Most Chaim Potok books, but especially The Chosen. Oh and Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead (which if you haven’t read, you simply must!).

6. One book that you wish had been written: Literary aesthetics and why it matters in your daily life

7. One book that you wish had never been written: The Prayer of Jabez

8. One book you’re currently reading: Alex Zwerdling, Improvised Europeans: American Literary Expatriates and the Siege of London

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: Yikes, there’s too many of those. I haven’t made my way entirely through that great tome of the 19th century, Moby Dick; also I’d like to finish War and Peace.

10. Now tag five people:
David and Neyir Urminksy
Bryce
Mr. T (in the comments section of course)
Any of the Uni girls back at Edinburgh

One of the memes going around the blogosphere has to do with books and reading — which book you’d take with you if you were stranded on a desert island, which book made you laugh/cry and which book you keep coming back to to re-read.

Rereading is an interesting phenomenon. Why do we re-read? It’s obviously not for content. (Well, I suppose it sometimes is, if we are teaching the book and forget the characters’ names…*clears throat*). However, I imagine we re-read in part to take us back to the past moments in which we read the book in the first place. Is this the sort of thing we do with songs as well? Listening to music from our “golden days”?

What do you think? What books have you found yourself going back to and why do you think this is?

So things are pretty much shaping up in The Lion Rampant: California edition. The hot has not killed us. The negligent drivers have not crashed into us and the In-N-Out burgers are still delectable. Our flat is mostly unpacked and I’m doing pretty well — if I do say so myself — on successfully driving a manual transmission.

But because I should be creating file folders, planning lectures and arranging my bookshelves at work, I don’t really have time for blogging — but lists should still do the trick.

1. I miss our life in Scotland and yet CA seems pretty normal too.
2. I’m really enjoying getting to know local teachers; I took a course on Teaching in the Christian Classroom this week and it was fab. I’m also really enjoying speaking with the other profs and staff here at Providence.
3. I love shopping at Trader Joe’s!!
4. We’ve been able to go to the Hollywood Bowl and hear some great classical concerts twice already. And get this: we get to take the BUS there. This is truly a highlight for me. Although we have to drive to where the bus leaves, we can still support public transport (which is quite a rarity in the LA area).
5. The reality that I’m teaching in a few short weeks hasn’t hit me yet — hopefully it will soon!
6. We’re famous. Yep, we have been spotted. When we were at the Hollywood Bowl the first time with our friends, Ken and Gillian (who don’t yet have a blog…), a girl sitting next to us came over and asked if we were “Bryce and Ashley from Scotland.” Thankfully she prefaced it with her comment might sound a bit weird… well, it was weird but cool as well. Margaret had read our blog following the link from Intellectuelle. Her friends shared some of their picnic with us, which we said was because of our star power.
7. We actually have enough money to buy meat to eat and it does make me feel guilty having meat for dinner nearly every night; I need to go ahead and get more veggie recipes again.
8. Bryce and I have started reading Bill Bryson’s I’m a Stranger Here Myself, a book about the humourist’s return from the UK to the States after 20 years away. It’s hysterical. And for all of those of you who know Bryce’s “silent laugh” — Bryson gets him every time.

This weekend we’ll get to see Bryce’s sister and family, which we’re very excited about. They lived in Scotland as well, so it’ll be great to discuss all of the issues surrounding returning to the States.
Thanks for all the thoughtful comments to those back in our adopted country of Scotland. Transitions are very funny things. Thanks for sticking around as we process it all …

As you can imagine things have been a bit crazy. I’m sitting in the air-conditioned public library right now, after effortlessly getting my library card and then putting in slightly more effort to get my wireless internet connection up and running. We should get our phone line in on the 9th and hopefully will be connected to the internet at home shortly thereafter. Between now and then please expect communication to be sporadic.

So here is a list of crazy things that have happened so far:
1. We took showers after moving at midnight on the 31st, but the water wouldn’t turn off in the shower. A plumber came by this morning to finally shut it off. We just pretended that we had a fountain. (And no, we don’t pay our water bill and the landlords weren’t all that bothered about it…though they did call immediately for a plumber to fix it).
2. I drove the VW Vanagon (sp?) all by myself yesterday from Costa Mesa to Pasadena even in some almost stop-and-go traffic. I am becoming less freaked out by driving a manual transmission as evidenced in my panic subsiding and my hands getting less sweaty while driving.
3. We picked up our Jetta, which is a lovely champagne colour. Bryce enjoyed driving it (and making sure I was okay in the Vanagon as we carpooled up to Pasadena together).
4. Bryce started work today!
5. I was given a reprieve on my due date for my class syllabi. This means I don’t have to plan my classes in about a 24-hour time period.
6. Things are mostly moved in in our new flat. Man, we have to buy a lot of stuff to get settled: kitchen goods, plastic bins, some spices, toilet paper, you name it.
7. Sadly our marble top to the lovely table we’d used as our kitchen table cracked when we were moving it. (Sorry Nana!) However, Bryce shall repair it and it will still make a great patio table (which is particularly nice as we have 2). That does mean however that we’re in the market for a dining room table. We went to Identity Craft a furniture store that makes all their own stuff, from solid wood and they make it to order per your specifications. The prices are also quite reasonable; we plan to pick something out today (as entertaining without a table is um, interesting) and then it’ll be ready in about 8 weeks.
8. Unpacking is going well and it’s not ridiculously hot — two things we’re very thankful for. We are really happy to be in our own spot again.

Weird thing is, is that I had a dream last night that it was 2 weeks till we left Scotland for California, and we were making all our preparations. I wonder if I still haven’t been able to process the move. Probably not.

We’ll have more to report as our brains normalize. (I know, now my spelling’s a huge mixture of British English and American English– maybe that means I’m learning to spell Canadian!)