Day three at VTS and so far so good, thanks be to God. I arrived safely on Saturday afternoon, stayed in VTS guest housing and then moved all my stuff in on Sunday morning when the dorms opened, with lots of help from VTS middlers and also from fellow Mississippians Morris and Emily Thompson, who arrived earlier in the summer. Had a great brunch at the "cafe" on campus (which happens to have a full bar) before getting everything organized Sunday afternoon.

(Arrival here was pretty incident free, except for the fire alarm that went off Saturday evening in guest housing while I was in the shower--I was outside barefoot and with wet hair for a while until Alexandria FD came and determined there was no fire.)

I'm not quite sure how I scored the dorm room I'm in but it's huge, with lots of storage, and I have a terrific view of the patio where people congregate to discuss deep theological issues. St. George 205 will be my home for this year at least and I'm hoping maybe VTS will give me the same room next year (everyone has to move everything out of the dorm every year, since VTS uses them for other programs during the summer).

I've met terrific people so far. My next-door neighbor is a very sweet younger woman from southeastern Haiti, and Tanzania, the Philippines and Israel are also represented. And although most students I've met are from the Southeast and Mid Atlantic, there are also several students from New York State here this year, along with one or two people from every other region of the country.

I have one more day of getting settled before we start full bore tomorrow. The middlers who are around (most of them are still off finishing their CPE) keep telling us incoming juniors how exhausting August term is, as far as the busy-ness of it. And judging from the schedule, it looks like they're not exaggerating. Tomorrow we start at 9 and our last meeting is at 6:30--a pretty full day. Included in tomorrow's schedule is a session introducing us to the Biblical languages, a noon Eucharist, a session on community and spiritual life, something called the "Spirituality of Transition" and a host of other informational sessions. We'll have three days of that before starting language classes on Monday.

Speaking of languages, I think I'm going to start with Hebrew this year and try to learn some Greek next year. I'd been planning to take Greek, but I"m told the Hebrew teacher for this year is pretty great and also that if you want to do both languages, it makes sense to start with Hebrew. I very much hope my brain can learn Hebrew.