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2004-04-20 - 4:42 p.m. It's done, it's done, it's done! Exactly 24 hours before the deadline I wrote the final wordcount on the bottom of the last page and put it to sleep in a folder. Printed, proofread, word-counted and FINISHED. What a feeling of freedom! It's been a beautiful day all day. This morning I went to hear the "Mere Sermon" being given by the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, Rowan Williams looking very like the teddy bear that bears his name! This sermon is a University event and so academic dress was required - I billowed along through town, relishing the opportunity to wear my gown in its proper setting. At the door of St Bene't's stood every imaginable variety of academic prowess, such an assortment that you would need a guidebook to recognise them by their plumage: gowns and mortarboards, hoods with and without fur, top hats and long cloaks and white neckties. My undergraduate gown suddenly paled into insignificance. The sermon itself was about obedience and was very political - he certainly made his feelings about Iraq and third world debt clear. The general gist of the Christian part of what he said was that there is a hierarchy of obedience: you can only expect someone to obey and respect you if you in turn obey and respect God and the demands of fairness, etc, that are made on you. Sam said afterwards that he thought Rowan William's agenda as Archbishop was an extremely political and practical one, and that he was more concerned with Third World debt than with the finer points of theology, which is just as it should be. But it did make his sermon in an utterly academic place, where people only ever talk about it, both incongruous and challenging. We had arrived 45 minutes early to get a seat, so I managed to get most of my proofreading done before the sermon. I finished it in the fellows' garden after lunch, sitting in the sun in front of Milton's mulberry tree next to a very pleasant Austrian lady who is in England for three weeks with a group of secondary school children. She said it was the first time since arriving that she had had a quiet, restful time to herself, and then asked me lots of questions about life in College. She reminded me slightly of Doerthe. Poor Tiff got his project in today by the skin of his teeth! He's been in such a state about it, but he sent me the finished article and (to my non-mathematically disposed eyes) it doesn't look too bad: it's professionally laid out and explains itself quite clearly. I hope he gets some recognition for the work he's put in, especially for the construction of the project circuit itself. I also hope he gets some sleep...if only we were in the same place so that we could share celebratory hugs and mutual exhaustion! Sophie reckons she will be finished soon, so I expect I will be having a drink with her tonight instead. And then, onto exam revision... � 
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