It is on a sad note that I am packing my clothes, books, and souvenirs tonight. The sheer wish of going to the UK since I was a child, as my father was a seaman, materialized this week. It is, however, about to end. Although my stay here had been barely a week, such time was enough for me to accomplish many things.  I must say, they were rather efficiently done, if only for friends both old and new that made my brief experience even more worthwhile and insightful. Hoping to etch the memory somewhere more concrete, I recount here my week as it unfolded.

April 2

For having touched down at London Heathrow Airport in transit to Manchester, I have every reason to say that I’ve been to the UK’s imperial capital. Do not ask me for details, however. All I can say is that temperature was near zero in April when spring must be ushering in more heat from the sun. There was a coaster that transferred our cohort to Terminal 4, which I suppose, is dedicated to domestic flights. That was all I could speak of London. And I thought Manchester had better weather. On my way out from the train to meet up my friend, Nic, I lamented wearing only a shirt and my NUS jacket. Mist was coming out of my mouth the moment I said a word. And Nic was there only to laugh at me. What my childhood friends were teasing me about my thick skin is not true, after all. And no, my fat insulators did not do any help at all. Worse, they were all sleeping. And even worse, it was drizzling. Because I was awed by Manchester’s Victorian landscape and I wanted quality time with Nic, I preferred a 30 minute walk from the station to Hulme Hall where I was to stay for the next three days. Talk about masochism in the name of cultural adventure. We had dinner that night at his place, with two friends bringing fried chicken and Mang Tomas. Margaret is Filipino-American and Marchin, Polish. Seeing Nic that day hundreds of miles away from our Ateneo homebase and some years after graduation was not only sociologically interesting (i.e. global movement of students) but also emotionally fulfilling. Nic was kind enough to admit that it was great to see a friendly face after so long. The feeling was mutual (no, this is not Brokeback). I thought that was a very warm welcome. In fact, in the morning after I accompanied Nic on the bus to Manchester Airport (as he was going the US for his brother’s wedding), I was saddened by the idea that I won’t be seeing him in a long time again. (no, really, this is not Brokeback).

April 3 - 5

Ah, the conference’s commencement. The main purpose for coming to Manchester was to present my research paper in this conference on religion. Aside from being accepted into the programme, the privilege was really the result of three entities helping out fund my entire trip: the British Sociological Association, NUS, and of course, my dad. The programme was intimidating. My name was on the list of panelists who were either doing PhD or professors in European universities. I was the only one doing a Master’s degree and from an Asian university at that. But God is good, I must say. I enjoyed every minute of my presentation and was able to address and learn from the questions and comments made by the academic audience. At that time, I did not have any idea that these academics were topnotch in the study of religion, i.e. they got many books all over the place. My seatmate, Abby Day, gave positive remarks to my paper. And I got a very pleasant surprise. She asked if I could contribute my paper to the book she is editing as an output of the conference. How could I say no? But without being lavishly ecstatic about it, a tendency I consciously avoided for impression management’s sake, I replied, "That’s great. But first, give me time to revise and proofread it." Now I must say I am under tremendous pressure. And then there was David Chalcraft, a professor of classical sociology from the University of Derby who asked for a copy of my paper for him to cite in a Weberian research he is doing. I have yet to understand in simpler terms what he intends to do in his writing. After the three of us in the panel on evangelism had presented, Abby introduced me to Lancaster University’s Department of Religious Studies. I had no idea that it was Linda Woodhead, the very author of the book I was reading back in Singapore. Another pleasant surprise. For the next two days, I had the privilege of sharing my interests with her and she even agreed to supervise my PhD work granted that I do it at Lancaster. It was disappointing to know, however, that research grants are extremely limited in her university and it was the situation in many of UK’s leading academic institutions. I immediately decided to email and set an appointment with Bryan Turner, a professor of mine at NUS to see how we can work things out for this. The conference, by and large, was a very enriching experience for me. The academic network of academics in the study of religion was all of a sudden within my reach. Dinner time was always perfect to build networks. Lan Li, a Chinese PhD student from Queen’s University Belfast came to me to talk about my research on new paradigm Christianity. She was very interested in it. In return, she talked about PhD opportunities in her university. she was also very supportive of me doing my PhD work in Belfast. Mind you, I was getting confused by then. In addition, I enjoyed both trivial and academic conversations with Chen Yang and Chang-won Park, PhD students from Lancaster and Durham respectively. They were to tour me around their universities later this week.

—more to come—