Getting comfortable, studying

Ofcourse I'm studying here (oh really?) so that is also taking up some of my possible boredom time :). I am now taking two classes,
- Approaches to Religious Pluralism and
- Literary and Artistic Approaches to Sacred Texts

Last week I had my first presentation for my Pluralism class. The girl that was supposed to do the presentation this week dropped out of the class...so there was an open space. I offered to do it, so after working on it this weekend in Holland, and taking twice as long as planned, (thanks to a crashing Word Document......grrr) I went to class last Tuestday quite confident and happy with my five-page long presentation on an article on Islamic theology of religions.
Our professor starts the class with saying that he has invited a guest to today's class, as he is an expert on the topic. So he introduces the Head Imam of the Scottish Shia Muslim community to the class.
My jaw drops. Am I suposed to do my tiny amateur presentation on Islamic ideas of other religions in front of this man? This man that could loosly be compared to a Catholic Archbishop? Right....breathe....focus....
No biggie, I'm only going to introduce the ideas of the man that wrote the article, no personal opinions or theory-posing yet, so I'll be fine.
And I was fine, thankfully! Before I started my presentation I asked the Imam to help me or correct me wherever he felt the need, which he only did to help me pronounce a couple of Arabic words and names of theologians. He was happy with the rest. Phiew.
In the discussion following my presentation it was very interesting to hear him speak about his religion. You don't often get to meet someone so involved or with so much authority on such a topic and it was inspiring to hear him speak.
And I mean inspiring in a 'I'm happy I'm studying this'-way, not neccesarily in a 'I'm converting to Islam tomorrow'-way.

Turns out that he did the Masters programme that I am doing now last year, and is still working on his thesis. I think it's great that he is involved in Inter-faith relations like that. Yup, worth big 'thanks for helping save the human race'-points in my book.