Much more cool, I just ran into a former student, one Michael Ferry, who is starting at Marquette this year, along with--he tells me--Pete Hamann and Christine Sweeney. That'll be fun to see some familiar faces: there was only one St. Joe student here in last year's class, and she hasn't been terribly fond of me since I gave her detention at the end of her sophomore year....
Just coming in from a lunch with Michael Fahey, SJ (the fellow I came to Marquette to study with) over at the Jesuit residence. He's been really concerned and interested about my surgery, having had colon problems himself, and so we had a long, fine talk about colons, popes, his current list of those electable, and the current state of the College of Cardinals (down to 124 eligible to vote with Cassidy of Australia just hitting 80), Jamaica, Victoria BC, music, and dissertation topics. He shot my idea from May to pieces (he's good like that--said it'd make a fine book, but not a dissertation), but gave me some sound suggestions for me to continue meditating upon. We also had some good talk on my presentation ideas for the "Arts in a Post-Christian Culture" conference, which--I note--none of you took up when I suggested it (see July 1st entry). I'm surprised: I really thought some of you would get a charge from the idea.
