You know how the last episode of a series usually has a certain climactic tense mysterious rhythm? Like different storylines are going to meet in some sort of unexpected way? Like the meaning of everything that's happened so far will be revealed in some awful or awesome moment? Like all the characters are on the cusp of something big and even they cannot help but feel it...?

Dear reader, these days I feel like I am in that last episode or cusp! The fact that I am moving house day after tomorrow is of course one strand. But there are several others knotted together and new ones are emerging all the time, as if they have a role to play in the knot. My intuition is really cranked up to the max and I feel like anything could happen. Awesome or awful? We'll just have to wait to find out.

In one propitious development, I met with a prominent scholar in a related field. The fact that he is brilliant was a given. Having read his work, the opportunity to meet him right here in this little university town felt a bit like the mountain coming to Mohammed instead of the reverse! But I think what impressed me even more than his intellect, which is impressive in itself, was his attitude. I feel like it's this combination of brilliance and humility or kindness that I find extremely inspiring. That I wish to emulate to the extent I can. He did not have to give me, just a budding scholar finding her feet, the time of the day. But he did and did it in such a kindly way, treating me like an equal with a mind, that it sort of restored my faith in the goodness in academia or the goodness in the world in general. I guess it shows the fibre of a person that in spite of growing in stature they do not lose their rootedness… which is why I respect such people so much!