Well, it's over. The lecture was delivered last night, and now life can resume. It went very well for a first attempt--the students applauded at the end! Thank you to those who gave me such good advice. My next task is learn to prepare for lectures more efficiently. Now that I've had the experience of giving a lecture, as well as having gained a better sense of the students' level of knowledge and preparation, hopefully the next one won't take so much time (or stress) to prepare. For me the highest reward was confirmation that this is what I really want to do. It's easy to lose sight of the goal during these long years of study.

This morning, while waiting over an hour for an appointment, I read an article in a back issue of Smithsonian Magazineabout nature reserves in Russia. The authors maintain a website called Wild Russia, where they post some beautiful pictures of these remote places. When I get home, I'll post a couple here.

I also learned about a Spiritualist town called Lily Vale in New York, cruises along the Inside Passage in Alaska, and sage grouse and their endangered sagebrush habitat. Somebody had torn out the article on a traveling Egyptian artifacts and monuments museum tour.