a (timely) love list...

i'm in love with...

...cycling in london! the barclay's rental bikes are a mere pound for 24 hours, and since i'm now in the big city several days a week for research and/or conference presentations, i'm loving flying through the windy streets and grand squares.

side work projects like some research i'm doing for a professor of mine on this legal case. or working with them. and hopefully more things like it coming soon...

and our tiny oxford flat! and that i can deep clean the whole thing in a mere 30 minutes after a long ethiopian research/conference discussing/london commute/article writing day. it feels wonderful after all that somewhat abstract-ness.

but most of all, i'm in love with the fact that one year ago thursday we were here:




and to celebrate we'll spend this coming week there...





oh! i know i've been lapse in blogging, but i tell you... phd-life with toni in the UK is like moving from bliss to bliss. i have to step back and think - it happened! this is the ideal life i dreamt up for myself at 16. (ironically enough the age when i first went to florence, giorgio vasari as my guide, and was utterly reinvigorated with life). and it will only all get better. summer visits to family, next year in ethiopia, cool work opportunities, and continuing to learn and grow and meet more good, wise people. words are horribly insufficient to describe it all, one of the reasons i have been so remiss in the blog updating. but we are happy, that is all. the end. :)

German Christmas

the Nürnberg Christmas market was sprawling and filled to the brim with lebkuchen... toni's mom decorated the tree with bright red apples, golden walnuts, gingerbread cookies, and real candles... i absolutely fell in love and want to decorate all future trees in the same way... toni and his sisters played carols at night... le sigh... it was all so utterly calm and bright, just as it should be.

and now 2012! i can hardly tell you how excited i am for this year, and all the rest after. life is all more beautiful and bursting with bliss than i could have ever imagined. huzzah over and over again.

Christmas Christmas Christmas!

i made mom's classic gingerbread last night for a little dinner party at our place. oooh i bit in and felt like i was sitting in villa park or sundance. it was amazing.

it snowed! :) but didn't stick. :(

this is beautiful and makes me think of les and steph.

i have 14,000 out of 100,000 words written of my phd thesis. HA.

we leave for Germany a week from today. hurrah!

and! look what delights we got in the mail today! grammy sent toni and me these amazing little Christmas tree ornaments with pictures from our wedding, our very first ornaments! i'm totally in love.



Merry Christmas!

o magnum mysterium

i told you the last week of term was magical, and it truly was. it started out with seeing toni sing in a performance of mozart's requiem in the sheldonian theatre. here's a blurry picture of the choir and orchestra:



here's a less blurry one of the gorgeous 300+ year old theatre...



you know those moments when you sit back and realise - oh heavens i'm so happy i am married to this person? that gosh darn it they are so perfect for you? that was one of those nights. the whole thing was gorgeous.

then the last evening of term we headed to exeter college chapel for a "9 Lessons and 9 Carols" service. oh heavens! it was perhaps the most beautiful Christmas event i've ever been to. nine passages were read from the Bible progressing from the fall, to the announcement of a Redeemer, to the miraculous birth itself. interspersed were old english carols we all sang together, but then even better, stunning pieces sung by the choir. i was more moved than i can say by the spirit of it all. the setting (where we had our own lovely ceremony just months before :), the beauty of the old carols' words, the angelic voices, all centering on the story of the birth of Christ.

we went with our intellectual-doppelganger couple from sweden, anna and magnus - she just finished a masters in public health looking at maternal health in ethiopia (!) and he's just started a phd in politics with toni's same supervisor, AND they just got married this year. they're utterly lovely and we're so happy to have met them. after the service we had some minced pies then went over to the stunning old dining hall at exeter for a proper Christmas feast, paper crowns and carols and all! here's toni and magnus looking suave.




and toni and me. yay.




luckily enough the choir sang one of my all-time favorite pieces of music, lauridsen's "o magnum mysterium." here's a video i found of the piece sung at king's college chapel, cambridge - a bit of a grander scale, but it reminds me so much of that night we had at exeter... how can you listen to this and not feel the spirit and beauty of this Christmas season? truly, what a great mystery and gift it all is!



loves and Christmas well-wishes!!
jooj.

week 8, or end of term, or advent begins!

this week i was met with two pieces of truly sobering news from loved ones, and it's hard to take in. it makes toni and i look around at our little life here and remember again, it is all a miracle. our lives are miraculous, no?

in honor of that miracle, and to properly process it all - the end of the week, the term, the year! - we took a long long country walk on the environs of oxford this morning, our first day of term break/holiday. naturally, it was gorgeous. perfect.





seriously beautiful, right? sigh.

also. i really wanted to go off and forage for some Christmas ornaments. there are so many colorful winter berries around england that i wanted to make into a wreath for our red door:



:)

all things considered, this past week was actually one of my favorites in this ancient little town of Oxford - England does the Christmas season right, i tell you. will share more in the coming days. in the meantime toni and i are off to Cambridge for a conference on reproductive health. (ok ok I'M going to the conference and toni is nice enough to come along so we can stroll through more beautiful-ness together :)

much love to you all, and hurrah for the start of the most glorious season of the year!
jooj.

from one oxonian to another...

so, just preparing my Sunday School lesson for tomorrow (very first! totally pumped!!), and was reminded of this quote by dear old c.s. lewis. it's just too good not to share:

‘the practical upshot is this. on the one hand, God’s demand for perfection need not discourage you in the least in your present attempts to be good, or even in your present failures. each time you fall He will pick you up again. again He knows perfectly well that your own efforts are never going to bring you anywhere near perfection. on the other hand, you must realize from the outset that the goal towards which He is beginning to guide you is absolute perfection; and no power in the whole universe, except you yourself, can prevent Him from taking you to that goal. that is what you are in for. and it's very important to realize that. if we do not, then we are very likely to start pulling back and resisting Him after a certain point. i think that many of us, when Christ has enabled us to overcome one or two sins that were an obvious nuisance, are inclined to feel (though we do not put it into words) that we are now good enough. He has done all we wanted Him to do, and we should be obliged if He would now leave us alone. as we say ‘i never expected to be a saint, i only wanted to be a decent ordinary chap.’ and we imagine when we say this that we are being humble. but this is a fatal mistake. of course we never wanted, and never asked, to be made into the sort of creatures He is going to make us into. but the question is not what we intended ourselves to be, but what He intended us to be when He made us.’

hehe - don't we all just think we're simply "decent ordinary chap[s]"? the lesson is on "the chosen generation," based on 1 - 2 Peter, and dang. it's a goodie. i can't wait for tomorrow to share it with these lovely teenagers. we all need to be reminded of how divine our nature is time and again, no?

beijos,
jooj.

yay.

i love thanksgiving. it was always the best growing up in villa park - using the fancy silver, going to a matinee after, marie callendar's pumpking pie and mom's stuffing! aah! so this year i told toni we have to stay away from the libraries and seminars that day and celebrate proper: spend all morning cooking, then eat around 3pm. also planned: seeing the new "wuthering heights" movie later that evening. proper p* fam thanksgiving, right? :)

but in all honesty. i remember driving up to sundance at the start of january this year, with mom's leg in massive pain from her surgery, dad's knee swollen 5 times its proper size... we were returning from a stay in a hotel off the I-15, praying that by the time we got back to the house the power would indeed be restored after 48 hours+ black-out. both mom and dad were not in the best shape, and i just didn't know what we'd do if the house was still frozen over with no heat in sight. our house was the only one of a handful whose power was still off despite mountain repairs, and i have rarely prayed so hard for a miracle on that drive... it had been a stressful 3 weeks of SO MUCH SNOW and power outages and non-functioning roads and SO MUCH SICKNESS of every one of the visiting extended family (except me, miraculously). remember that, ya'all?

anyway. the miracle happened. the power was on. mom could rest and recover in warm peace. i vowed to pray for more miracles, big and small, this year. and by heaven! what a year it has been. miracle after miracle, and the prayer of gratitude to be said on thursday is going to be very very long... here's a quick list of the biggies:

toni moved to brazil to join me.
a quick 3 weeks later, toni and i decided to get married!
and just 6 weeks after that, toni and i got married!
i got into oxford (again).
toni got into oxford (again).
i got a full 3-year scholarship.
toni got a full 3-year scholarship.
we got to move back "home" to england, and found a lovely little flat all our own.
both sides of our families flew all the way here to celebrate with us in september.
that wedding seriously was miraculously wonderful.
toni and i got to go to ethiopia (already) and explore and learn.
we bake bread.
we get a bursting box of yummy seasonal veggies from the neighbouring farm every monday morning.
the oxford ward is wonderful and i have two perfect callings and some beautiful women in the relief society to be friends with.
there's really yummy chocolate in england.
we live across from a peaceful meadow with cows in it.
we have hot, running water and a lovely, clean kitchen with electricity.
we have grocery stores really close by that have everything we could need. (and more.)
libraries! seminars! lectures! professors!

ok i'll stop there. but really, what a year, no? what a life! it's too much. the too-much-ness is astounding. i had no idea the year would end up with so many miraculous things happening when we were driving up provo canyon that cold january night. i'm sad to be so far away from everyone on thursday, but i'm also so happy that this year i'll be celebrating thanksgiving with dear toni in our little flat as a little family. hurrah for that!

and hurrah for 2011! and happy thanksgiving to you all!

loves!
jooj.

week 6 it is!

sheesh am i bad at transitions these days. or maybe i always have been? (i remember nearly breaking out in tears at the cheesecake factory after mozambique - ha!) but it's been a rough patch the last 5 days getting re-acclimated to oxford from a mere toe-dip into addis. my bearings are all off. though the air does smell incredibly sweet and lovely here after all the urban exhaust in ethiopia...

but that was the whole point of coming back to oxford, so toni and i could end all the mad continent hopping and truly settle. (seems improbable with us, no?) but we DO feel so in love with our oxford home. on returning sunday night we realized we wanted to keep this flat for the full 3 years, it's just so perfect and we feel so happy in it's little walls. keep fingers crossed our landlord will let us sublet for 7 months or so while we're on fieldwork... eep!

otherwise, as thanksgiving draws near, and then Christmas after it, oh sigh! i realize how much i miss dear sundance. knowing i'll miss the winter season altogether :( no bob's Christmas party or warming up at the pellet stove or breakfasts at the grill... but most of all i'll miss lovely things like this...



and this...




hehehehe! can you believe how little david was back then! the cheeks! love.

anyway. onward on and upward. parties to go to in london, thanksgiving potlucks, loads of classic British Christmas dinners (and by dinner they do mean lunch), and of course my first gorgeous German Christmas to look forward to! (really really excited about that one :) it's going to be wonderful. just hug all the little ones close for me (and toni, too)!

beijos.
jooj.

i have no idea what term week this is anymore. oxford? wha?

toni and i have officially one more day in ethiopia, fitting in all last minute appointments we can. i'm starting at 8am with the head of the Gandhi Memorial Hospital, a maternity hospital built in the late 1940s by indian missionaries. (cutting for stone!!) i'll then pay a visit to the Empress Zewditu Hospital up the road... in both cases i'm keen to see if any records remain at all on-site from the early days of operation, though i'd be frankly shocked if there were, since nothing really exists anywhere else... the military government which ran ethiopia for 2 decades after a coup in the 1970s were pretty systematic in their destructive mission, leaving the whole country with scattered archives at best. this means several things...

1. i completely understand why there is virtually no medical history written about ethiopia (as compared to nearly every other african nation), it's a diligent mission of detective work to piece together what happened pre-1976....

2. in addition to working through some files about a british-funded hospital (thankfully) housed in london, i may have to spend a great deal of time combing through archives in OSLO. can you believe it? norway of all places? (mom will totes visit me then. hehe) but their lutheran mission branch ran a host of hospitals and clinics in the southern region of ethiopia, and i talked to the guy today who personally took all the boxes and boxes of files out of the country once the military revolution occurred... so there they are, safely stored up in oslo. (ran.dom.)

3. aside from that, it'll be tons of oral histories. over lunch today with an ethiopian friend we found out he was born in one of the hospitals i'm looking at, so hurrah! i can interview his mother! and all her friends! toni and i sat over tea with richard and rita pankhurst yesterday (if you don't know who richard pankhurst is, DO google him - it was an amazing privilege) where for 2 hours they just sat and blurted out random old doctors, nurses, or missionaries that they knew who were around at that time that i could talk to.

anyway. research aside. yesterday after hopping off the minibus to come home, a young mother with her infant on her lap were begging for money on the side of the street. it is admittedly everywhere in addis, and i am constantly aware that these early maternity wards i'm researching have had so little to do with the majority of ethiopian women. the truth is that they were and still are for the elite, and are a real sign of privilege beyond anything else. (ok so these hospitals are now state-run and mostly for lower middle class, with wealthy women going to private korean clinics. but still. even the state-run are by no means serving all.) it's a strange and frustrating position to be in, to see so blatantly these two worlds. here i am in limetree, this comfortable cafe with $2 wheatgrass shots (and wifi), surrounded by such a small segment of such a massive country. the privilege is staggering to say the least.

so sigh! there you have it. a hugely productive week. lots learned, but many more questions and roads to discover than anything else. it's truly its own world, ethiopia - it's been lovely to be an observer of it all for the last 10 days...

much love to you all.
jooj.

tenay'stelleny!

totally writing this from ethiopia, which is thrilling beyond words! i'm actually ducked into the lobby of a 4-star hotel near our (very kind) friend's home where we're staying, sitting next to 2 chinese guys playing games on their laptops. it's pretty par for the course of being in an african capital city that you perch yourself on poofy armchairs and buy a tea so you can use the rare internet connection. (or in the case of niamey, ali and i would duck into the 4 star hotels to feel the reprieve of air conditioning in 130 degree weather... aaaah....)

anyway! have been here in addis ababa for less than 48 hours, so of course all is very new, but it's been wonderful so far. it's a gorgeous highlands city, with clean streets, cool weather, and green green hills... i feel totally sucked in and can't wait to properly live here later on for fieldwork. toni and i are already scouting neighborhoods and amharic schools...

have also already had some success in research-scouting, and i can't help but feel like the modern-day equivalent of the egyptian pharaohs sending envoys to "punt" (their name for ethiopia) for myrrh, or the ptolemies scoping out the interior to buy elephants for their armies. this whole process of arriving at a place as a foreigner and begging people for trade - for me it's information and personal histories and archives, but i can't help but feel sucked into the ancientness of ethiopia. of course every african nation has centuries of rich histories of change and development and trade and war, but ethiopia is unique in how much of it has been recorded in forms that still exist today, so we can really sketch out a rough image of what it has looked like for 5 thousand years. the ancient aksum empire was converted to Christianity in 400 AD by Syrian traders (oh how history has changed, no?) - there are churches 1000 years old carved totally into rock-faces, stelae and standing stones 2000 years old...

but that process of begging for trade never ceases to amaze me in the way people open their arms with kindness and warm hospitality. immediately upon arrival we had a friend greet us at the airport, a lovely bed to stay on, and more friends to make sure we're fed and taxied around. (fyi my first dinner in ethiopia was at a tex-mex restaurant some of toni's friends took us to, so i ate fajitas and frozen yogurt as if i were a 12 year old again home in villa park. haha!)

also, sorry we didn't bring a camera this time round so you could get some sense of it all... i sort of hate taking pictures in a place where you already stick out like a big white sore thumb, but maybe everyone will just come and visit so we can show you around in person? they have tex-mex! :)

love to you all,
jooj.