Welcome!

Hi everyone,

Welcome to my blog, where I will be recording tales of my trip to Sydney, Australia later this summer (10 July - 21 August), the fruits of my Fr. Smith Fellowship for Service and Study Abroad from Providence College.

I just wanted to make a couple of early summer updates:

First, last evening I received an e-mail from fellow PC student and fellow Fellow Francesca Genova, who is already in Oxford, England, where she is studying the New Atheism at Blackfriars. It was great to hear that she arrived safely and settled in. She's already been to see Christopher Hitchens speak!

Over the weekend, I applied for and was granted a short-term tourist visa by the Australian government, so I can officially enter the country and stay there for more than just a short time. Just this morning, I received an e-mail from Jessica Langrell, who I will be living with in Sydney, with some updates. One of my projects for today is registering for SCENE, an evangelization conference sponsored by the Archdiocese of Sydney, which I will attend during my first week.

Finally, a picture of Fr. Smith Fellows, new and old! During exam week, the last summer's inaugural Smith Fellows, Elizabeth Weber and Claire Pevoto (who both just graduated from PC this past Sunday!) took the 2010 Fellows out for some ice cream and advice at the Newport Creamery near PC. This was a great time for all of us to get to know each other a little better, update one another on our plans, and talk about how lucky we are to have this opportunity and how thankful we are to those who made it possible.



From left to right: Francesca Genova '11 (Oxford), Patricia Carroll '11 (Kenya), Julia Tully '12 (Kenya), Hollis Dunlop '12 (Nicaragua), Lia Santilli '11 (Sydney), Claire Pevoto '10 (Philippines), Elizabeth Weber '10 (Oxford)

Thank you again to Claire and Elizabeth for a wonderful time, and best of luck as you conquer the world after PC!