'Hi, I'm Emily, and I'm a first, no I mean second, year Biologist...'

Yesterday saw the arrival of the incoming class of Jesus college 2009, and thus the dawn of this year's Freshers' week. It seemed all so recently that that was us, nervously hanging around the JCR, wondering with each new conversation if this could be the new best friend (or potential life partner) you've been looking for - scoping out the 99 other people (plus the second and third years) you'd be spending the next three years with in the full knowledge that they're doing exactly the same to you. 
It was strange being on the other side of it - not having to worry that I didn't have anyone to talk to, or a safety zone of friends, or whether I would be able to find my way back from a club on my own at 3 o'clock in the morning. I had my friends, that have been there a whole year, around me, and knew as I walked into town from the flat and back again with one of my flatmates that there would be no awkward conversation, no trying to impress, and no false niceties, because we've come to a place where we truly know each other. However, I still couldn't dispel that uneasy feeling during the day as I stood in the JCR surrounded by freshers, and again later on in the bar, that I remembered so clearly from my own freshers' week only a year ago. In complete empathy was that feeling of looking round the room and not knowing the names of any of the faces you see, not knowing who would be a safe bet to go and talk to, who was genuinely a bit too cool for you to really engage in any kind of discourse, and wondering if you’d be able to summon the character within you to make people like you. And it was scary. The conclusion I came to was that experiencing freshers' week from the other side was probably much more fun than the first time round because of the security and level of Oxford-savviness acquired from having done a year already, and the ability to pick and choose which things I want to be involved in without the pressure that I'll miss out on meeting new people or no-one knowing who I was. Also, being in a pub having subject drinks with the other Biologists and Human Scientists, including the freshers, highlighted just how much we've come on in a year, and how exciting it is for these new guys to be embarking on what we've just come through – to the point that I’ve come to actually understand the guys in the year above when they start chatting Biological (which certainly wasn’t true of this time last year…)
I remember my first tutorial: "Does the sudden appearance of new animal forms at the beginning of the Cambrian mark an explosive evolution of new body plans?" I remember receiving the essay title and thinking ‘I don’t know when the Cambrian is and I don’t know what a body plan is…’ and just generally having no idea what the essay was going to be about, and having no idea at all how I was going to get 2000 words worth of anything, let alone anything coherent and knowledgeable. It wasn’t easy. And I’ll not lie and say that now whenever I get an essay title I know what it’s about and will be able to write a good essay on it – but I do know how to approach it, and know that this year I have learnt a ridiculous amount, even if it’s just in how to use the libraries to get the right references.
The whole idea of the new year-group of freshers coming in makes me think about how much has happened in a year, in what potentially could be a very nostalgic way. But also in an excited way at the thought of what is to come this next year. If as much happens in and to me this coming year as has done this past year, then I need to steel myself for my life being turned upside down to an even greater extent! When I realise how much I’ve learnt, how much God has spoken to me, how many amazing friends I’ve made and how much of the almost-real world I’ve newly experienced it amazes me that my brain didn’t overload, but makes me incredibly thankful for having had all those things in a year.

BUT, in other news: I went to see Fame [http://www.generationfame.com/ ] last week with two particularly wonderful girl friends of mine (I still haven’t seen Creation, btw, that remains to be watched and reviewed). It reminded me of the ‘Fame’ theme that JFC (the kids club back at home I was involved with pre-uni that I visited the week before I came back to Oxford) has running at the moment, and how the kids were being encouraged to consider their talents, and what they want, and think it is good, to be famous for. While Mark’s talk was aimed at 5-12 year olds, it did get me thinking about what I want to be known for, along with the idea in the film of discovering what you’re truly good at. Being a good scientist? Being a FAMOUS scientist – for being controversial? Discovering something amazing?.... Do I even want to be famous at all, or is it more about ‘being famous with God’? Is it better for being famous for achieving something amazing, or not being conventionally famous at all, and just being known among your friends and peers as being someone worthy of being known? I read the book ‘The Five Love Languages’ by Gary Chapman [http://www.fivelovelanguages.com/] this summer, and it made me think a lot about really loving people, and that being an amazing thing to be known for – that you love people fully and expressively, and can communicate that to them in a way that shows love beyond yourself, and ultimately of God. Perhaps being famous for discovering a new species, or conducting some ground-breaking research, or making an impact to the scientific community in some fundamental way is something fantastic to strive for in the long run, but it’s not going to happen soon (you only have to read my essays to realise that!), and perhaps for now I should focus on being known for loving, and trying to be a good friend, and living out God’s love to the people around me, while I look ahead with my long-term goals. So I shall end with that famous passage from 1 Corinthians 13, if only to remind myself of what I should be striving for…

 ¹If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,^[b] but have not love, I gain nothing.

 ⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 ⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. ¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. ¹²Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

 ¹³And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

But as a final final leaving thought, I give you this photo with the question 'how many boys (who attend Oxford University) does it take to put down a rotary clothes drier?!' Perhaps the real question should actually be why they had it up in the first place.

Blog Number One

So, the start of a new blog, and the ridiculous decision of what I should write about! (Who's your target audience? she asks, thinking back to Alevel English Language. Does it matter? Not really.)

I've been at home now with very little to do for what seems like an immeasureably long time - having had some incredibly exciting weeks away travelling (in South Africa, the Outer Hebrides, and a Salt&Light camp near Battle) - but these last few weeks (even month, perhaps) were optimistically put aside for working in, but the dire decline of the Christian Bookshop industry has sadly left my most reliable of holiday jobs somewhat unreliable. It's such a shame, because the shop is an amazing resource for so many people, and has been a fantastic place to work for the last four years (it really has been that long), but the ever increasing looming presence of the Amazons and Tescos of this world are overbearing, and they continue to steal the market and sell to it at prices that we could never match. But this story, perhaps, is one to be told at a later point. Nevertheless, much prayer is required in that area.

So without a large amount of paid work to be getting on with, I've had the chance to take some day trips (Kew Gardens being the prominent, with Mum), and catch up on the things of my head that have sat in the background for the majority of the year, and now have the chance to come to the front and be fully mulled over. 'God loves Darwin too', which was the only blog title I could scrape from the bottom of my creative barrel last night when I set it up, stems from thoughts I'd been having about Creation, influenced by the barrage of Darwin items in the media this year (including the new film based on his life out this week [http://creationthemovie.com] ), the small amount of holiday reading I decided to embark upon in advance of the 'Evolution & Systematics' compulsory module I'll read this year, and the three audio sermons on the subject of 'Creation' by Jeremy Blakey and Steve Jones that were drawn to my attention on the Oxford church's websites [http://www.occ.org.uk/oxford/resources/audio].

It's a subject that's been playing in my mind the whole year, since before I left to start the Biology degree, in fact, and has been constantly challenged and rechallenged as the year has gone on - by lecturers, friends, probing church pastors and, ultimately, myself. While the subject is massive, and I'm sure I could waffle on about it til the cows came home (which inevitably they eventually do, but they're renowned for being dirty stop outs), I won't right here and now, just for your sakes. But needless to say, there has been a lot going on in my head around the whole debate of whether 'Science & Religion' can ever be compatible, whether creation and evolution can co-exist as compatible theories and how it all fits together. I don't know anyone who's got it completely sussed, but there's been a massive settling in my spirit regarding the issue as I've learnt more and prayed more this year, so perhaps I'll do a proper blog about it all at a later stage (perhaps in a quiet week?).

Anyway, some good conclusions I did manage to come to were around the fact that however Darwin's ideas have been used to 'disprove' God in this neo-darwinian era of science, Darwin was not a man out to disprove God, and made that clear in his work.  God loved Darwin too, just as much as he loves me, you (whoever you might be) and the holiest and most pious people you know of. That's it. He loves Dawkins too, however atheistic he might be, and that's..well, funny, to me :D It doesn't matter how much they push God away, He always longs for them to come back.
Another thing that I've been thinking about, taken from Jeremy Blakey's talk on the People of God's creation, was the role of stewarding of the earth that was appointed to mankind by God - Jeremy puts it really well (much better than I'll be able to here!) how the earth is God's and we are here to look after, live in and love it ([http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm%2024&version=NIV](Psalm 24) &  [http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm%20115:16&version=NIV] (Psalm 116 v 16)) ...it put into context for me what my role is, and perhaps why I've fallen in love with animal biology, plants and ecology so much. I want to learn about the earth, maintain it and cherish it; I've realised that rather than being geeky, it's entirely unsurprising, as that's what God has made and called me to do.