After several months of inactivity I think xanga will soon be a thing of the past. But i'm going to keep it for now. becuase i am that cool.

As promised I have put some pictures up for viewing. Please go to my photos page and select the Mongolia, April 2007 Album or click http://photo.xanga.com/tr87/albums/b31e8357073b31.

Click on the thumbnails for some info on each picture.

In terms of things to say, I'm not really sure where to start. It's been quite an eventful few weeks from the thumb injury to working back at the University to flight cancellations. At least I can no longer say that life is boring!

So the thumb. It seemed a good idea at the time, but trying to self-treat is a very bad idea, especially as my only claim to medical knowledge is what I can glean from that fast paced unbeatable medical drama that is ER. So after cutting off my cast with the kitchen scissors, which by the way is really hard if you're trying to use your left hand, I decided it was still trying to heal and that I wasn't helping things, so I put it back on. It really was one of the most malodorous things I have ever had to put up with. But eventually I took it off again and things seem to be moving along swimmingly, nevertheless when I want the hospital to make sure everything was OK, the doctor was most unimpressed with me. Guess it serves me right! At least things weren't as bad as for poor Graham (see above, with Cat and Becky from St Andrew's).

Then the flights. Because I’m being stingy with money this year and not wanting to spend too much, I booked the cheapest flights going to Beijing and Mongolia. Unfortunately Air China cancelled my connecting flight from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar so I now have to wait in Beijing for an extra day.  Probably will end up in an overpriced hotel near the airport just to get some decent sleep – to be honest trying to sleep on the airport floor in the midst of my 30 hour stopover doesn’t sound too appealing.  Can’t wait to go now, I’ve been starting to buy things up, like sterile first aid kits, drugs etc (and postcards of St Albans, sweets etc as gifts). Apparently there is no hospital in the town where we’re going for 3 weeks so I’ve been advised to go prepared for the worst. I can’t believe though, that it’s going to cost £90 for Rabies vaccinations. Ugh. And there is very little chance that I’ll be going anywhere near dogs after my experience in the summer! In terms of language, I think it’s a lost cause! Two countries, two completely different writing systems and pronunciation schemes, I think hello and thank you will be my limit.

On Tuesday some of us went up to London. I went up at 7 in the morning to get my Chinese visa and spent most of the day in differnt queues, always with a different ticket to get what you wanted at the end! Met up with Ben and Aaron in the afternoon and we went to see Blood Diamond - It was a pretty good film in terms of getting its point across, and was easy to get involved with as it was based on true events. I don't think it was as good as Hotel Rwanda or Last King of Scotland, but it wasn't far behind. The Lane Craig/Wolpert debate in the evening was good but not as impressive as I'd hoped, mainly becuse Wolpert was poor at debating and couldn't make any response at all to Craig's arguments except "I'm sorry but that's a rubbish argument". Unfortunately for him, the arguments were actually pretty good, and Craig was able to tear apart Wolpert's few and feeble arguments withn surprising poise. One small omission though I thought. Wolpert stated that people believed in God because it made them feel comfortable in a big world and gave meaning to their life. I felt that Craig's response could have been aided by the fact that actually people reject God's existance becuase if he is real then they are accountable to him. So in fact, the argument should be the opposite. People don't believe in God becuase if he is real they are accountable to him for their actions and will face the consequences on them so it is more comforable for them not to believe.  

For John Humphreys' response to the debate (which he chaired) see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/03/nrgod03.xml&page=1

It's quite interesting, but clear to see where Humphreys is coming from personally!

Time to go and buy some pizza making stuff for Crossway tonight. No more Ben I’m afraid. It’s going to be really weird after spending so much time together that we’ll both be doing completely different things until July. Have fun Ben!

Later.