It’s been rather a long time since I posted properly, and rather a lot has happened.

I was elected to membership of the Apache Software Foundation - I’m really delighted about this, as it’s recognition from a group of people I have a huge amount of respect for (collectively and individually), that I’m clueful, “get it”, useful to have around, appreciated, and more Squee!

Perhaps more of a life-change, I started - and finished - my final year examinations for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Moderator) in Computer Science, Linguistics and German. I achieved the highest score in the year, and will graduate with a First Class Honour on November 8th. It’s all a bit odd - earning this degree has been my primary focus for five years now (I took a year out to get some work experience halfway along), I’ve excelled at every stage, and yet I came out of several of my exams really not sure I had passed at all… To not only have passed, but to have won a (reasonably significant, cash) prize for having excelled once again is fantastic; but to be finished leaves this air of uncertainty, of “what now?”, that’s somewhat unsettling for someone as focused as I am… (I know that may sound odd - but when I set my mind to something, it gets absorbed into my very subconscious, so that even when I don’t always appear totally, unrelentingly focused on it, it is nonetheless what I’m working 110% towards. Five years is longer than I’ve ever tried to keep that focus before, and now I’ve achieved what I set out to do, and more.)

Stephen and I started our marriage preparation course, which has been fun thus far - Ali cooked us a beautiful chicken curry, with creamed rice for dessert! We also had a weekend away, at Ovoca Manor (based in Densmore Lodge), with the church. It was fantastic fun, we made full use of the assault course, enjoyed some fantastic teaching & discussions, had a ball with the various kids there, and generally unwound. Half a dozen people were baptised in the river on our last day there - teeth chattered, but all agreed it was well worth it.

The night before we headed out to the camp, we went to hear Rob Bell speak in St Mark’s, on his “Calling All Peacemakers” tour. He was awesome, and seriously thought-provoking. It was also fun to meet several of Stephen’s cousins again, who I’d met a week or two before at his aunt’s 60th birthday party (and some of whom I’d met before that, in the TCDCU, or at Core).

Life really is great at the moment! I’m on a break for now, winding down after exams and results, trying to chill out - so if you need someone to write your documentation, now’s the time to nab me, before anyone else does!

There’s been a bit of a mixup - turns out things we thought were booked actually weren’t, and things other people thought weren’t booked actually were.

So the new, official, definitely going ahead date for our wedding is Thursday, 15th November 2007.

Honest guv!