From Waco, TX

Hey people! Sorry about the lack of posting, but January was a pretty manic month, culminating in my first trip to the USA for a church conference called World Mandate. When some other members of the team have sorted out their photos, then I'll post some of the best on here. For now, I'll just comment that the US is surprisingly different to the UK even though it's all part of the 'western world'. I know Texas isn't representative of the whole US, but it's very flat, there are loads of fast food places and churches all over, and the less said about the obscenely-sized 'cars' that use petrol like there's no tomorrow, the better. Americans are very friendly, though.

Semester at Sheffield starts on Monday, which is great - I've been looking forward to it for a while! - but it's a little badly timed. I fly back to Manchester Sunday afternoon, but don't get into Manchester until 8am on Monday, and I have a Hebrew Texts lecture at 10am. Plus the research seminar following that. I really hope I'm not jetlagged!!

I'll post some more when I get back and have had some sleep, and hopefully I'll have found a way to get my cartography paper on here in a downloadable PDF format. Pax!