Odds and ends

Just an update on what we've been up to, a bit rambly.

We leave for Rome this Friday night!! Hurrah! We're so excited, especially David who will be glad for the time off work! He'll work a full day on Friday and I'll meet him after work (either in Slough or at Heathrow, haven't decided yet). We arrive in Rome at midnight and have hired our B&B owner to pick us up at the airport since the Metro will be closed then.

David sent off some job applications on Sunday, as the whole non-paid-holiday thing is getting really lame. And the very next day, he got a phone call from his employment agency asking him to come down to their Reading office immediately after work! He did so, and met with several different recruiters about several different jobs, and it all seems to be going well. Our biggest hope is for a wonderful financial job at the University of Oxford, which makes more money than he currently does! That would be an awfully nice commute, and maybe, just maybe, there'd be some tuition discounts in there for us. Here's hoping!

In academic news, I heard from my supervisor via e-mail this morning for the first time since the end of term. It was very interesting - she has been talking with my future supervisor about my dissertation ideas. I've previously mentioned that two frontrunners were (1) Constantine, Christianity and the cult of the Invincible Sun or (2) the transition from the goddess Artemis to the Virgin Mary in ancient Ephesus. I was leaning towards the former, but apparently my future supervisor, Jane, is quite excited about the latter. Her specialty happens to be early Christian devotion to Mary. Hmm. I don't have to decide immediately, so it will be something to ponder while we're in Italy! And then I'll probably meet with Jane and make a decision.

In my other life, as a webmastah (as David puts it), I got several links to ReligionFacts from a few big sites over the weekend, and my earnings finally went up again. Nothing to be proud of like a Yahoo Pick, but just forum-type sites where people submit interesting links and then the members of the site check them out and comment on them.

They all linked specifically to my "Big Religion Chart," and it got lots of interesting reactions! I read all the comments on the websites that had the link, and got numerous e-mails. I received several indignant messages from Freemasons because I had included them on the chart - they insisted it's not a religion and one said he was sick of the "conspiracy theorists" (including me, apparently) who kept saying it was. Another said I might as well include the Elks Club on there. Interestingly, I also got an e-mail from an apparent non-Mason who said I should put on the chart that Freemasons have been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to study the occult! Another person wrote and said Scientology is not a religion but a weird and dangerous cult. Well, that's obvious.

This is all in spite of the lengthy disclaimer at the top of the page that not everything listed was a "religion," but simply a group that had a set of beliefs and/or rituals and could be compared with other such groups. (I include atheism on the chart for crying out loud.) I personally don't have a strong opinion on whether Freemasonry or Scientology are religions or not, nor do I really care. I also think it's rather like saying what is "art" and what is not - everybody disagrees.

Anyway, I included both simply for the sake of comparison and because both are in my Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. FYI, the Elks Club is not in there. But in the end, I got really tired of all the self-important e-mails, especially since I feel I should respond to most of them, and simply deleted Freemasonry from the chart. Like I said, I really don't care one way or the other!

There were also several e-mails from people who were offended that their faith was left off the chart, despite my copius disclaimers that it's not comprehensive and a work in progress. If you're interested, these included Spiritualism, Voodoo, Paganism (I do have Wicca on there), Satanism and - yes - Flying Spaghetti Monsterism.

But overall, most comments were positive and I got relatively few e-mails given how many people checked out the chart (thousands!). I even got a couple nice e-mails complimenting me on my hard work and the interesting idea. One nice guy said, "I hope you don't get too much flak from the crazies." It was a welcome message after becoming thoroughly depressed at the state of religion and humanity in general!

Overall it was an interesting insight into the mind of my "audience" and I'm very happy for the increased earnings. But in the end, it just reinforced how much more I prefer my Sacred Destinations website! It's less complex, more interesting to me, less likely to provoke angry e-mails and much more fun. I sure wish it got the same traffic levels as ReligionFacts (it gets about 1/3 as much), but it is a year younger so I'll give it time. And the trip to Rome will add some great stuff to it!

And finally, since we're assimilating to the Brits, I should briefly mention the weather. It has been wonderfully cool for about a week (62-ish and cloudy/rainy), which is such a blessed relief after the heat and humidity. We even had some huge thunderstorms the other night, which I didn't think were very common here. It was nice knowing that even if the big tree outside fell over, our concrete block of an apartment building would probably not even be fazed. Today it is warming up slightly and there is beautiful sunshine with a nice breeze.

I've been watching the Rome weather and it's been an average of 82-84 with much lower humidity than Oxford. That's not as bad as I thought it would be. Three more days!