Things have been crazy over the last few days, hence my silence on here. I've wanted to post sooner but haven't been able to because of the business of the schedule this week and because I've been so tired when I get into bed. We're already into our fifth full week of lectures. It's surprising how fast time flies when you're really, really busy, as busy as we have been since the school started. Due to the nature of this week's lectures, the LMD (the School of Leadership and Ministry Development) and the DTS (the Discipleship Training School) are having lessons together in Harlesden at the Salvation Army's buildings. The schedule for this week has been changed quite a lot due to the amount of time it takes walking to Harlesden from Dartmouth Road. Walking fast, it'll take an about forty-five minutes or so to get there, but somehow it usually takes longer. Walking has been rather refreshing as it gives me an opportunity to wake up more in the mornings before the lectures begin as I'm not really a morning person.
If you've read my previous post then you'll know that on Saturday morning I went to Dunstable to spend the weekend with my cousins. After a somewhat dramatic journey with having to change Tube trains three times instead of two, and being on a train that kept stopping because of signaling problems I finally got to Luton, then caught the bus and made it to my cousins' place with moments to spare. We then went off to see Lindsey preform in an amazingly done musical on Saturday. Lindsey had such a natural talent for the stage and has so much enthusiasm. To me, it seems like she's so at home on the stage and just loves being up there. My aunt and uncle (who are Lindsey's grandparents) were there, as well her godparents, and we had seats right at the front of the auditorium. After that we went back to the house and had a lovely spread. It was lovely. On Sunday, I was able to relax all day, which was really nice. Then in the evening I get a message from one of the school staff, saying that there was a parliament prayer meeting and that I needed to go (I won't disclose what I thought about that, at least I can say the meeting went well). They'd only just heard that all the LMD students had to be there. So when I came back to London I dropped my duffle bag at the house, grabbed my passport and headed back into London city.
I spent all of Monday meandering through London. It was a lot of fun being on my own, actually. I love being around people but sometimes I just need a break. The staff knew I was going to meet them outside Westminster Underground Station at 6, so I went down Oxford Street and bought some clothes. I also Skyped a friend from a Starbucks. It was short, and the quality wasn't great, but it was nice talking to her. I then travelled over to Westminster and spent a few hours sitting in one of the gardens there reading and catching up on my diary/journal writing, before meeting the school at the station.
Being something of a history nut, I was so excited to be in the Houses of Parliament. One of the other girls and I had so much fun talking about the history of the great hall, where we were waiting for about half an hour. It was incredible because the building was finished in about 1099 by William II (otherwise known as William Rufas). It has gone through many changes over time and was badly damaged by a fire in 1834. The great hall has seen trials of great men, like William Wallace, who was one of the leaders of Scotish war of independence (roughly 1297-1298). The great hall also heard their verdicts, for William Wallace, that meant execution, and thus, on 23 August 1305, he was hung, drawn and quartered (for the sake of my more sensitive readers, I won't go into the gory details surrounding that, but I'm sure you'll get a nice description if you checked Wikipedia).Till next time, dear reader!