I would have put this in the last post, but not everybody had been told in person yet. Now that they have, here 'tis...

Adam and I are moving to Philadelphia!

Christ Church on the Main Line in Wayne, PA (about 30 minutes northwest of Philadelphia) has called Adam to be their rector (pastor). Our official start date will be November 1. The position is bi-vocational, so Adam will continue his work at Gordon-Conwell via telecommute. His job is designing online courses, so his work is totally online anyway. Adam just got ordained to the priesthood on August 25, with the express purpose of having this church in Wayne be his first pastoral cure.

We're really going to miss our dearly loved friends here on the North Shore. Adam has lived here for seven years, so he has put down some pretty deep roots. While I've only been here full time since January, I still have made some pretty close friends. I'm sure we'll make new friends down there, but saying goodbye is sure never fun....

This weekend Adam and I are going to a clergy retreat down in Maryland, and on the way we're going to look at some apartments in PA. I think once we nail down housing this whole thing might start to feel more real. It certainly hasn't sunk in yet! 

Hi all!

I know it's been a long time since I've updated, so here's the news... I've been buried in books since May. This summer I took (and passed!) two comprehensive exams for my DMA (on music theory and music history), and right now I'm working on a third. This one will be the hardest yet-- it's on piano literature, and the bottom line is, I need to be able to identify the composer, title, opus number, and possibly the editor of 350 pieces, based on a page taken from any part of the score (that's right, it could be from the middle or the end). I also need to be able to list the information on an additional 350 pieces. I have 14 weeks. Can I do it????

Meanwhile, I'm also starting work on my thesis. For the DMA, you only have to write for about 50-60 pages, so it's not a full dissertation by any stretch of the imagination, but still, it'll be the longest paper I've ever written. The topic is going to be the differences between Soviet and Western biographical sources on Rachmaninoff's departure to America and the impact of that on the last half of his life. I've been going down to Harvard every Friday for the last month to scan in thousands of pages of Russian source materials on Rachmaninoff. Not being able to use my own school's interlibrary loan system because of being here in Boston has been a big pain, but having a good reason to visit Harvard almost makes up for it!

On the much more pedestrian side of life, I am learning to make bread! I've made four batches already, as well as a pumpkin pie. One of my goals for this coming year is to get "comfortably proficient" (as my Rule of Life states) at baking. Part of the reason for this is that I really miss Russian bread; I haven't found any American store-bought varieties that come close. Plus, there's just nothing that tastes better than freshly baked bread right out of the oven. Am I right or am I right!