The Burn Biblical Studies Colloquium

I spent the last two days with about 30 other Biblical Studies postgraduate students and faculty at a country retreat centre called "The Burn." It is this huge 18th-century house that was established as an academic retreat by a family after their 21-year-old son was killed in World War 2. The Burn is located on 190 acres of land, and has such activities as putting, croquet, tennis, pingpong, and a labyrinth.
We arrived on Wednesday around 11:00 am, and promptly started presenting papers. Over the two days I must have heard around 15 papers on a wide variety of topics in New Testament and Biblical studies, in addition to presenting my own 20-minute paper. It was a lot to take in academically, but it was interesting to hear what other students are working on, to see how others present papers, etc. My own presentation went relatively well. It was my first real academic presentation (at least in this format), so I was quite nervous. The presentation itself was fine; I don't think I did as well as I could have in answering the questions after I read my paper, but excellence at that comes with time and practice. Overall I was pleased. Now I have to revise and lengthen my paper somewhat for my next presentation at the Scottish Universities Conference on June 21.

On Wednesday afternoon a large group of us took an hour-long walk along the River North Esk on the Burn property. It was a gorgeous river walk, and a great way to relieve some stress. Not surprisingly, Laurie was constantly looking for ways to stray from the main path. She, Brian and I took a detour which led us to a neat ruin in the middle of the woods. Pretty cool!