It was a week ago or so when I happened to think of all the ways Newbold has influenced my life. I was eating chocolate that M.J. sent me, wrote another tract to B. (a 'bad ***' one, as he calls my long sentimental-emotional outbursts he has to endure every now and then), talked and prayed with S. over Skype, listened to illegal amounts of Ky-Mani and Stephen (I hold U. responsible for that). I don't even want to mention how I analyse and critique sermons now when I sit in the pew (I think J. has done a lot in this area by killing my own sermons - although we never agreed on the terminology, what I called 'killing' he called 'sharing thoughts'). And of course I ordered tea with milk the last time I went to a cafe. There's not a single area of life that Newbold and Newboldians haven't influenced.

So this Throwback Thursday is a tribute to my Newbold family.

K. & J. & H. & U.
S. & A. & M. & T.

That picture was taken on my birthday party in the end of my first Newbold year [click on the photo, it goes bigger]. It's a picture I don't come across with very often but each time I do, it makes me laugh. It's this happy kind of laughter as I think - just like any Newboldian is ought to - that I happened to be in Newbold at the right time and happened to meet all the right people there.

But enough of that. We wouldn't want to get too emosh now, would we.

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As to books, I'm finishing Dostoyevsky's monumental The Brothers Karamazov today. After the LOTR trilogy there's no book too fat for me. :) Then I'm on to Tchekhov's short stories. While reading I listen to Rachmaninoff's music. I'm going all Russian here.