A New Day Dawns

Well, that's done it. I am now officially graduated with a Bachelor in Arts from Brigham Young University. It seems somewhat surreal, but the Convocation was tremendous fun. My wife walked together (she had disdained to when she graduated all those years ago, but had always regretted it), and we walked across the stage at the same time. There were some who walked with their babies, but we decided we would rather take a chance to sit together while someone else watched her. We love our daughter, but it was still nice to be away from her for a few minutes. My mother came out from Virginia, my wife's father and stepmother were there, and my two brethren with their wife and fiancée, respectively. A respectable crowd and far larger than I expected. Thora's brother and sister came to see her yesterday (thanks again Camilla: you helped out wonderfully). The ceremony itself lasted roughly an hour and had a nice laid back feeling to it.

As I look back over my years at BYU, I must say that they were very good ones. I have had some great teachers. John Gee, Stephen Ricks and Ed Andrus spring to mind immediately as teachers who helped me see a wider world. John Gee was my Egyptian hieroglyphics professor and was, for a long time, who I aspired to be. I have since not chosen Egyptology as my path, but Doctor Gee taught me more than just languages. He showed the great organic whole that knowledge is, and although one may specialize. It is dangerous to specialize to the point where you can no longer see forest for the trees as it were. Doctor Ricks was my Hebrew professor, for many of my Hebrew classes. As I am primarily an Hebraist, I would not be going to Oxford without his good aid. Almost all of the reading which I have done in the Hebrew Bible was done under his direction and with his encouragement. תּודה Ed Andrus was my first sociocultural anthropology instructor, and he built in me a desire and a skill to examine the interconnectedness of things, and the universality of reciprocity. I am no longer an anthropologist, but his training remains with me.

I would be remiss if I didn't also mention Kent Jackson, Dana Pike and David Seely, who helped show me the way, encouraged me in my scholarship, and in the case of Doctors Jackson and Seely, helped pay for my college experience. They are all of them good men and good scholars, and I don't know if I would have been as good as I am today if it weren't for their guidance. I am particular grateful that I got to know Doctor Seely, because I met him so late in my college career, but he was such a profound influence on me. A thanks to all of them. Here is a picture of me standing with Doctor Dana Pike. He was the faculty advisor both for the Ancient Near Eastern Studies major and the Students of the Ancient Near East club, the presidency of which I served in since its rebirth from the Student Society for Ancient Studies, in various capacities.

The hard part here is now that I have finished, I have a larger and more dangerous world ahead of me. Although I am going to be in school of various types for the next seven or so years, Graduate School is a different beast than undergraduate education. Sometimes it makes me a little nervous. BYU and Provo is all that I have known, essentially since my mission, and it is all my wife has known her entire adult life. It is very strange to us to be leaving it. So it goes. I am just resistent to change I guess. I don't mean to be, but I think that all of us are in some ways. A new ward, new callings, a new state for Thora and Lydia, and in due time, a new country and culture. My life is about to get very exciting. I am extremely pleased the way my life has gone thus far, and I look forward with great anticipation and some trepidation to the great and exciting world out there.

On to Oxford.