Time to Catch-Up!

After a two year absence, I doubt many people even remember this blog. However, in the event that someone is wondering "what on Earth has Anthony been up to over the past two years?", here is the blog post that fills in some of the gaps.

Two years ago, I was in a very different position in life than I am now. I had just finished my Bachelor's Degree. I had moved back to London. I was still a member of Tetragon Lodge. They say that nothing lasts forever but the certainty of change. And change was certainly coming...

The most logical place to start is the latter half of 2009. Soon after my last post on here, I received news that I had passed my finals, and would be graduation with a Bachelor of Arts degree with upper second class honours in History. Likewise, I was admitted as a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Framework Knitters in London (more on the City of London's Livery Companies at another time...). In the September, I started a Masters course at University College London, again in History. Finally, at the end of the year, I got engaged to a lovely American girl. However, the good was balanced with the bad. For family reasons, I was forced to resign from Tetragon Lodge, of which I was Junior Warden. This was not a choice that was made easily, and in retrospect of things that happened later in my personal life, I wish I'd just stuck with the lodge.

2010 was a busy year, too. While doing my MA, I cut down on the amount of Freemasonry that I was doing - to maybe only one or two meetings a month. However, I soon found myself joining another order - that of Royal and Select Masters, or as it's often known, "Cryptic", which was great fun (more on that later!), and I found myself given the office of Junior Deacon in my mother Lodge. In addition, having resigned from my mother Mark Lodge, I joined another one - Old Kent Lodge of MMM (Time Immemorial). Yet, times were changing. After much deliberation, my fiancee and I eventually decided that we'd be living in Atlanta, the State Capital of Georgia (the US state of Georgia, that is - not the country. Their capital is Tbilisi). Obviously, with all my commitments back in the UK, this was not an easy decision.

Beyond that, my fiancee and I continued to hop across the Atlantic to see each other, and we put in the application for my Visa, while I finished off my MA. In the October, I was greeted with the news that I had successfully completed the MA course - hurrah! In the November, despite the knowledge of my impending departure for the USA, my second Lodge, Grey Friars, invested me as Junior Warden - an office that I still technically hold right now.

At the end of the year, I was issued with a K-1 fiancee visa for the USA, and finally made the move on January 20th 2011. Obviously, everything has been completely mad since then - I suffered from the inevitable culture shock and home sickness, we got married at the beginning of April, and we're in the process of buying a house. In the last few weeks, I've finally been given authorization to work, and so the job hunt has begun. Clearly, with all of this going on, I haven't had a huge amount of time for Masonic activity since I arrived in the USA. However, I have had the time to dip my toes into the vastly different Masonic world over here, and have attended three Craft meetings, plus one Royal Arch and one Royal & Select Masters meeting.

Of course, some of this I will expand upon over a few future blog posts, and I hope you'll keep an eye on this blog and stay with me while I update you on my Masonic travels. Everything that has happened has all been part of further preparing that stone - the slow process of smoothing the rough ashlar and making me into a better man.