Breakthrough(s)

So in all my efforts to visually capture my life with my new (!) camera, as I uploaded my photos to my laptop, I inadvertently deleted everything. Oh well... lessons learned... what can you do?!? I have no visual record of my birthday party and all my great friends there, or of the morning I spent dancing to Hairspray with cute study-abroad-bunkmate-Laurie's girls, or hanging out with mission-companion-Kim and her kids, all in Sacramento, or of my friends at the Mormon History Association conference, or of the great shots Janiece got of our Sunday devotional in a little old nineteenth-century church in Coloma, California, or, my favorite, Elder Marlin K. Jensen with a couple of old-timer gold-diggers. You'll just have to imagine.

But it's really been a great first week as a 34-year-old. I had a great time at my conference last weekend and got some good feedback for my paper. I think it finally felt like the breakthrough I've needed for the direction of my dissertation. Not to mention the fact that a few editors expressed interest in publishing my paper, and several people from BYU and from the LDS Church History Department expressed great interest in me coming to work for them one day. As Richard Oman put it, I'm really lacking in international experience and I really need to study up on African art. I'll see what I can do about that...