The real conference begins

I’m starting to lose track of days, with my watch telling me Canberra time and my computer telling me Oxford time, and days running into one another with an endless stream of talks, seminars, cafeteria meals, and conversations. I have to look at my schedule to find out that it is Saturday here. And ‘there’ where you are too for that matter, though the other end of Saturday!

Yesterday was the last day of the senior staff conference, and we had an afternoon free. I managed to get adopted by four Kiwis, who are a rowdy, fun bunch, and we set of in a hire car to go to the top of a tower and get a view of the countryside. We decided to ignore Jenny, our friendly satnav, and just drive around the lake, because that was the ‘obvious’ way to go. Jenny was right, however, but we had fun answering back to her before we finally took her much repeated advice to do a u-turn as soon as possible. It is the journey that’s important, right, not the destination? – or at least so some people tell us. It turned out to be right in this case, with the destination being a bit of a disappointment – but we had a lot of laughs along the way. We ended our trip driving in a thunderstorm to the war memorial. I think there were a lot of lovely statues and other sites along the long boulevard approaching the museum, but the rain was too heavy to see. On our arrival we were bombarded by hail the size of overgrown peas, so we surrendered to the weather and drove back to campus without leaving the car.

Today 1,100 students arrived! So the pace of things has increased considerably, as have the lines into the cafeteria. They are a great bunch of kids. I especially like the students from Fiji. They have been really friendly to me in a special way. I wonder if it is a cultural difference, if they are respecting me as someone older. If that is the case, it is a really lovely kind of respect, a kind that does not distance but draws me close into their circle as one of them.

A more traditional and western sign of respect is that, as an international guest, I have special rights and privileges, signalled by a large blue dot on my name badge. I was double registered, and I have an ordinary badge as well, so I’ve put the two in a single holder which I can flip over to suit my purposes. The blue dot gets me special seating at meals with other guests, which I decline in favour of sitting with students. It also, however, gets me soft seats in the front rows of the huge concert hall where the main sessions are held, and I’m using my guest badge for those!

The last announcement tonight was a plea from one of the organizers for the students to be considerate of those who wanted to sleep by not talking in the hallways – and to consider going to bed at a decent hour themselves. I am amazed – the students who want to stay up are in the common rooms, and the halls are quiet! If this sort of behaviour is the fruit of belonging to a Christian student movement, I’m all for it!

Now I’ll take advantage of the quiet and head for bed.