Today was the last day before classes begin. My day was spent mostly taking care of VINTAGE documentation and arranging some photo shoots. In the afternoon I spent a fair bit of time talking to Dr. Hayner about British historiography and filling out some forms. I went to dinner with Rhiannon, a friend and staff member from last year who is now a graduate assistant teaching English. After a meeting about extension opportunities with most of the student body, I had another VINTAGE training meeting for an hour or so. My staff came to the office tonight for our first real night of work. There are some really great people on staff; some really hard workers.

In just a few short hours, the day will begin with Revelation in Greek, American Legal History, chapel, History of England, and U.S. History. Once more into the breach . . .

After checking in on Friday, I am joined the BJU Alumni Association as an associate member. I’m not an alumni, but they want me to be one so they let me join. But the real action happened today. After waiting in line for forty-five minutes, I was able to talk to Dr. Hayner, my advisor. We talked about classes, check-sheets, schedules, papers, publication, and a little less than a half an hour later my schedule was approved.

I went over to the library, passed through the many lines and check-stations, and scanned my bubble sheet. I ended up with this schedule:

• Hi 501 — Puritanism
• Hi 507 — American Legal History
• Hi 407 — History of England
• Hi 201 — U.S. History
• ALG 409 — Revelation in Greek
• RPA 502 — Ancient & Contemporary Rhetorical Theory

You can see the times on the calendar.

I’m leaving for dinner now. If you hurry over to the BJU webcam, you will see me emerge from the bottom left corner of the screen, walk up and to the right across the bridge, turn left at the Student Center, and fade away into the distance as I go to the dining common.

Yesterday evening I got a call from Andrew Gerber, a friend whom I met through debate and VINTAGE. After completing most of the course work for an M.A. in Rhetoric and Public Address, Andrew moved to Germany as the IT coordinator for a company there. He’s in the United States for a couple of weeks on a working vacation. We got together and went to the Marble Slab for ice cream and walked around downtown Greenville. We talked about his job, his church in Greenville, changes in the VINTAGE (He was the editor for the 2004 book.). Interestingly enough, we’ve both been experimenting with Microsoft Project as a solution for project management; he hates it, but I’m growing to like it. We managed to make it back to the University ten minutes past the check-in time, so this is the first year that I’ve managed to get a warning even before the start of school.

When I got back to my dormitory, I ran into Bill Banegas, my friend and roommate last year. We went up to his room and talked for a couple of hours. He was the youth pastor of his church in Virginia this summer, so we talked about that. I persuaded him last year to become a history major, so we talked about classes and things like that. Bill’s big on fitness, so he made me promise to go running tomorrow morning.

About lunch time today, I got a call from Nathan Woodard, a friend whom I met through debate. He graduated with a M.A. in Church History last year, and he is now working for the Navy and for a defense contractor in Washington, D.C. We went to Zaxby’s and talked about his church in Virginia, his family, his job, his future plans, etc. Hopefully I’ll get together with Andrew and Nathan sometime before they both go back to work.

As soon as Grace Wong, the head designer of the VINTAGE, arrives on campus, we have a meeting with Mr. Bopp about some design concepts for the book. I already met with Mr. Cook this morning about portrait processing. Still some bugs to work out there, but overall things are going well for the book. We’re behind, but we’re picking up momentum.

Today I returned to BJU. I’m back a bit early so that I can be on location to get some things done before everything gets busy. The flights were uneventful and on time. Mr. Eoute, Philip’s grandfather who attends Grace Baptist Church, picked me up at the airport and drove me back to school. Along the way, he told me about changes that have taken place at the church, new people who have come, their vacation Bible school, and other things.

After finding my room (Brokenshire 234) and dropping off my stuff, I tried to find my way through the construction to go visit all my VINTAGE bosses. Mr. Appleman (my overall advisor) and I talked about the administrative side of things. Mr. Bopp (the faculty designer) gave me a mockup off the new cover design, and we talked about different design ideas. Miss Cromley (a lady who works for the Photo Studio and generally catches all of my mistakes) told me that I had lost a lot of weight over the summer; she’s one of my acting-grandmothers while I’m at school. After talking to them, I stopped by the Photo Lab and talked to the photographers for a while: Mr. Calnon, Mr. Cook, Mr. Block, and Carolyn. I missed my friend Elijah Wilcott, who worked at the Photo Studio last year, because he’s in China now for a couple of years.

Next, it was on to the VINTAGE office (Alumni 113). I took me several minutes to get into the office, because I kept trying last year’s combination for the lock. I spent a few minutes gathering all of my things that were scattered about the office and replying to e-mails, I walked to dinner. The aforementioned Philip Eoute, assistant editor for the VINTAGE, saw me walking and joined me for dinner. The dining common has a new way of checking one’s ID card. Their are two computer terminals manned by the hostesses, and one is expected to scan his ID card to enter. I wonder why they decided to go high tech: maybe they want to track more precisely each person’s eating habits, or maybe they think it will be faster.

After dinner, I went to the office and organized my books. I have twenty-seven books for sale or rent, so I need to put them up on University Yardsale soon and corner the market. When I went back to my room, I met one of my roommates briefly. His name is Kyle; he is a freshman; he works for Public Safety. More on him when I know more about him. For now, I’m in the office writing requisitions for photo shoots, and in a bit I’ll go back to the dormitory and write some things for VINTAGE. Hopefully I can get up early tomorrow, go running, go to breakfast, and get the day started early.

Because I’ll be going back to BJU tomorrow, many of my future posts will be a record of daily happenings so that family and friends can know what’s going on. Therefore, I am inaugurating a new category: “The Chronicle.” To explain the name, I’ll briefly excerpt my notes about medieval historiography from Dr. John Matzko’s class “Historiography.”

Why weren’t the Middle Ages a great era for the writing of history?

• Medieval man lacked a sense that the past was different than the present. That mindset cannot promote historical study.
• Some histories were bizarrely anachronistic.
• Medieval man took an uncritical view of evidence.
• There wasn’t much interest in cause and effect in history. Events were recorded, but no one was interested in why events happened.

The primary form of medieval historical writing was the chronicle. Medieval chronicles were different from what we consider history because they didn’t spring from a detached view of facts. They were haphazardly organized and showed no relationships between events other than between sin and punishment. They decided what the facts were based on what promoted faith. They were stylistically rough.

In short, medieval chronicles did little more than say what happened. My record of daily events won’t claim anything better.

There is an interesting biographical sketch of Bernard of Clairvaux (c.1090-1153) on the website of Christian History and Biography. St. Bernard was a twelfth century monk who led the Cistercian reformation. Though a Romanist, he was one of those forerunners of the Reformation who, though they did not break with Rome, yet made the Reformation possible by laboring for reform within the church. Protestants know him as the author of several hymns, including “Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee,” “Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts,” and “O Sacred Head Now Wounded.”

I have used many different websites to buy books online: Amazon.com, eBay, Barnes and Noble, bestbookbuys.com, alibris.com. Tonight, I used a different site for the first time: half.com. I bought all of my textbooks for the next semester and one for the following semester for easily half of what I expected to pay. Plus I got them without visiting three dozen dorm rooms and standing in line for forty-five minutes. And the books were cheaper than I could have gotten from any other internet site.

So, though I still recommend using Amazon.com to gather information about a book and using bestbookbuys.com to check the main outlets for the cheapest price, I now recommend using half.com to make the actual purchase.

Note: I have not received any financial or other pecuniary inducement, incentive, or reward to recommend the websites mentioned in this post. The recommendations spring only from a satisfactory shopping experience.
Note: This disclaimer, however, is in no wise intended to discourage any of the businesses mentioned from providing me with a financial or other pecuniary inducement, incentive, or reward now that I have recommend their websites.