Apparently free nights and weekends on my plan gives me all of Sunday, not just 'til noon. I'd heard the original from Dad, but he says he was wrong and doesn't know where he got that idea. Fine with me; that means I've got more free-calling time.
So there's a Barnes and Noble not ten minutes from my apartment, and I was pleased to find that they had cheap world maps, which I had been looking for unsuccessfully at Wal-Mart, Target, Wegmans, and pretty much everywhere else that seemed like a logical place to find one. So right now I have books from off my shelf weighing down each corner of my new, unrolled map, from where it's spread across the floor; when it flattens out, I shall put it up on my wall, at which point I can consult it whenever I please. And, besides its obvious uses for Diaspora class, maybe I can be less mediocre at most world geography.
-Laurel
8.31.2007
8.29.2007
Further Notes
Classes, Day Three.
Successes: am growing more used to the bus system all the time; found poster-tack at said beloved Wegmans; felt fairly in my element when discussing plot details and themes in today's reading for Diaspora (it helped that my group was discussing the short story I'd liked best of the three), which was the first three stories in Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, which strikes me as almost as an international-lit version of the kinds of books that Dr. Strong always used to assign.
Still working on: understanding literary theory; trying to open a bank account (I showed up to HSBC in person, and the guy, after trying to explain to me why I'm an idiot for wanting just a regular savings account instead of a student one, told me just to apply online and gave me the web address, leaving me with no option but to leave, which I did...the online verification process is doubly more difficult, of course, because they're trying to make sure that the information I'm submitting is my own, which would be obvious if they'd simply worked with me while I was standing in front of them, but clearly I am old before my time for desiring this); making friends. Not that I really expected this last to happen in only four days.
When I got my first-ever grad-student-without-a-meal-plan groceries on Saturday night, I didn't think it through before I put my packages (one each) of hamburger and chicken into the freezer. They've frozen solid, of course...enough hamburger for at least four people, probably enough chicken for five. I don't think I can separate them out now without thawing them, and if I thaw one, I have to cook the whole thing. I should have separated them out beforehand into single servings, put them in plastic bags, frozen them that way. But I forgot; I've never bought meat intending to be the only one eating it. Now the most logical thing appears to be to keep the packages frozen until such time as I'm feeding four people at once, and when on earth will that be?
I know that in theory I could feed my apartmentmates. There're four of us altogether, counting me. All of them are international students, which is nice; they're polite and serious, mostly absorbed in their work or their computers or their cell phones, in the same way that I do my work and IM people and go out looking for poster-tack or who knows what. But we're still pretty shy around each other; we went out for pizza on Sunday night (I had proposed that we each cook something, but Haewan had asked me, confused, whether that wouldn't be a lot more work), but for all of Monday, I don't believe I saw anyone else in the house, even though they were there. We don't eat at the same time. Sometime I'll offer to make dinner, since I think eventually we'll want to eat together, but right now seems a bit premature.
I know Polly (she's Bulgarian and is starting a Master's in anthropology) the best so far. She likes shopping (says Haewan; I haven't observed it myself), is friendly and curious, and, I've noticed, eats early and gets antsy when she's hungry. This is her first semester getting an American education, but she's been here before on work-exchange programs during summers.
Haewan and Mishong (I haven't seen them write their names out--unlike Polly, who left us a note today asking us to please help her eat the boxes of mini-doughnuts that were on the table--and am guessing at the spelling) are both Korean and both going for MAs in accounting. It's Mishong's first year, though, and Haewan's second. Haewan appears to be a bit tomboyish--my parents saw her room when she wasn't in it and thought a guy was actually living there. I don't know whether that's a function of her wearing things like sneakers, sweatpants, and baseball caps or not; it occurs to me that I've never seen her room myself.
She's not outgoing per se, but she isn't nearly so shy as Mishong. Mishong is very nice, but very quiet; I feel bad because, no matter what she says, I rarely catch it the first time, and keep having to ask her to repeat it. On Saturday she helped me put away the cookware and ingredients I'd brought along, and I discovered that she'd been in Wisconsin for the previous four years, married. "But my husband lives over there," she'd said, waving her hand out the window. I took it to mean that he was in one of the other apartments--an arrangement I found conceivable, if unconventional--but found out the next day that she was actually trying to gesture toward Wisconsin. He's still there. Apparently he too is a student, and was supposed to have been done and with a job here in New York by now. So Mishong had applied here and been accepted, thinking that they'd be here together--but somehow that fell through, and he's still there, and she had to come alone. He visited over the summer, either Haewan or Polly told me.
Haewan asked one night--either Saturday or Sunday--to see my room. I showed her. She looked around, nodding. She was surprised, though, by my computer. "You don't have..." She motioned to my computer, the same one I got for Alfred (newly-fixed; the power supply blew last week and'd had to be replaced), my tower hunkered on my desk by the monitor, AIM running at the right side of the screen. She made a smaller gesture with her hands.
"A laptop?" I asked. She nodded.
"Nope, just a desktop," I said. "I don't know, I just don't." I shrugged and laughed a bit, and she did, too. To her, it seemed odd.
But I guess it's none so odd: Mishong came into the apartment tonight, pulling two large Dell boxes on a dolly. Her husband had taken care of ordering her computer, and it'd arrived. She took it upstairs. A little later she came down and asked me whether I had a desktop computer. I said I did, and she asked me how I connected to the internet; I guess hers is a desktop, too. I couldn't be much help, since I forgot an ethernet cable and have been using the wireless receiver instead, and she doesn't seem to have have either one yet...but it still seemed like a little wonder that she was talking to me about it, since she's so very shy.
Tomorrow night, thank goodness, will be folk dancing. My dad, unfamiliar with the downtown area and therefore worried about it, told me last night to "take a buddy" if I went down there. "Or I just won't go down after dark," I said--though knowing, even as I said it, that it could only be a temporary promise; the sun won't stay up until folk dancing for much longer. He sort of grunted, barely accepting the answer. But it was the only one I had to give; besides the fact that in theory I'm supposed to be able to go where I want without his consent, who on earth does he think I could bring, anyway? One of the flatmates, I suppose. A fine idea on paper, but, like cooking for them, somehow not yet a feasible one.
Friday night is IV; in theory there's another English grad student therein, so maybe I'll meet her.
No plans yet for the weekend. Homework, I suppose, if nothing else.
Oh, and a note on the discussion group for lit-theory class: ours isn't big and isn't run by a TA after all. It's only us grad students, and Dr. Keith himself is running it. Our work is different--harder, in some ways--from what the undergrads will be doing. I guess this shouldn't have been a surprise. What was a surprise was being one of the only students in the group with no background in theory. This should be interesting.
And one more thing: not included in my otherwise-all-inclusive rent, as it turns out, is telephone service. So my sole number right now is my new cell number; my family finally committed to the Verizon thing (if the Twins' family did it first, you know we're behind the times, haha!). If you don't have that and would like it, drop me an e-mail or IM or whatever. I can call people for free after 9 PM on weekdays or anytime between Friday night and noon on Sunday, and if you're a fellow Verizoner, I can apparently call you whenever I want for free. So let me know.
And that's, so far, the way it is.
-Laurel
Successes: am growing more used to the bus system all the time; found poster-tack at said beloved Wegmans; felt fairly in my element when discussing plot details and themes in today's reading for Diaspora (it helped that my group was discussing the short story I'd liked best of the three), which was the first three stories in Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, which strikes me as almost as an international-lit version of the kinds of books that Dr. Strong always used to assign.
Still working on: understanding literary theory; trying to open a bank account (I showed up to HSBC in person, and the guy, after trying to explain to me why I'm an idiot for wanting just a regular savings account instead of a student one, told me just to apply online and gave me the web address, leaving me with no option but to leave, which I did...the online verification process is doubly more difficult, of course, because they're trying to make sure that the information I'm submitting is my own, which would be obvious if they'd simply worked with me while I was standing in front of them, but clearly I am old before my time for desiring this); making friends. Not that I really expected this last to happen in only four days.
When I got my first-ever grad-student-without-a-meal-plan groceries on Saturday night, I didn't think it through before I put my packages (one each) of hamburger and chicken into the freezer. They've frozen solid, of course...enough hamburger for at least four people, probably enough chicken for five. I don't think I can separate them out now without thawing them, and if I thaw one, I have to cook the whole thing. I should have separated them out beforehand into single servings, put them in plastic bags, frozen them that way. But I forgot; I've never bought meat intending to be the only one eating it. Now the most logical thing appears to be to keep the packages frozen until such time as I'm feeding four people at once, and when on earth will that be?
I know that in theory I could feed my apartmentmates. There're four of us altogether, counting me. All of them are international students, which is nice; they're polite and serious, mostly absorbed in their work or their computers or their cell phones, in the same way that I do my work and IM people and go out looking for poster-tack or who knows what. But we're still pretty shy around each other; we went out for pizza on Sunday night (I had proposed that we each cook something, but Haewan had asked me, confused, whether that wouldn't be a lot more work), but for all of Monday, I don't believe I saw anyone else in the house, even though they were there. We don't eat at the same time. Sometime I'll offer to make dinner, since I think eventually we'll want to eat together, but right now seems a bit premature.
I know Polly (she's Bulgarian and is starting a Master's in anthropology) the best so far. She likes shopping (says Haewan; I haven't observed it myself), is friendly and curious, and, I've noticed, eats early and gets antsy when she's hungry. This is her first semester getting an American education, but she's been here before on work-exchange programs during summers.
Haewan and Mishong (I haven't seen them write their names out--unlike Polly, who left us a note today asking us to please help her eat the boxes of mini-doughnuts that were on the table--and am guessing at the spelling) are both Korean and both going for MAs in accounting. It's Mishong's first year, though, and Haewan's second. Haewan appears to be a bit tomboyish--my parents saw her room when she wasn't in it and thought a guy was actually living there. I don't know whether that's a function of her wearing things like sneakers, sweatpants, and baseball caps or not; it occurs to me that I've never seen her room myself.
She's not outgoing per se, but she isn't nearly so shy as Mishong. Mishong is very nice, but very quiet; I feel bad because, no matter what she says, I rarely catch it the first time, and keep having to ask her to repeat it. On Saturday she helped me put away the cookware and ingredients I'd brought along, and I discovered that she'd been in Wisconsin for the previous four years, married. "But my husband lives over there," she'd said, waving her hand out the window. I took it to mean that he was in one of the other apartments--an arrangement I found conceivable, if unconventional--but found out the next day that she was actually trying to gesture toward Wisconsin. He's still there. Apparently he too is a student, and was supposed to have been done and with a job here in New York by now. So Mishong had applied here and been accepted, thinking that they'd be here together--but somehow that fell through, and he's still there, and she had to come alone. He visited over the summer, either Haewan or Polly told me.
Haewan asked one night--either Saturday or Sunday--to see my room. I showed her. She looked around, nodding. She was surprised, though, by my computer. "You don't have..." She motioned to my computer, the same one I got for Alfred (newly-fixed; the power supply blew last week and'd had to be replaced), my tower hunkered on my desk by the monitor, AIM running at the right side of the screen. She made a smaller gesture with her hands.
"A laptop?" I asked. She nodded.
"Nope, just a desktop," I said. "I don't know, I just don't." I shrugged and laughed a bit, and she did, too. To her, it seemed odd.
But I guess it's none so odd: Mishong came into the apartment tonight, pulling two large Dell boxes on a dolly. Her husband had taken care of ordering her computer, and it'd arrived. She took it upstairs. A little later she came down and asked me whether I had a desktop computer. I said I did, and she asked me how I connected to the internet; I guess hers is a desktop, too. I couldn't be much help, since I forgot an ethernet cable and have been using the wireless receiver instead, and she doesn't seem to have have either one yet...but it still seemed like a little wonder that she was talking to me about it, since she's so very shy.
Tomorrow night, thank goodness, will be folk dancing. My dad, unfamiliar with the downtown area and therefore worried about it, told me last night to "take a buddy" if I went down there. "Or I just won't go down after dark," I said--though knowing, even as I said it, that it could only be a temporary promise; the sun won't stay up until folk dancing for much longer. He sort of grunted, barely accepting the answer. But it was the only one I had to give; besides the fact that in theory I'm supposed to be able to go where I want without his consent, who on earth does he think I could bring, anyway? One of the flatmates, I suppose. A fine idea on paper, but, like cooking for them, somehow not yet a feasible one.
Friday night is IV; in theory there's another English grad student therein, so maybe I'll meet her.
No plans yet for the weekend. Homework, I suppose, if nothing else.
Oh, and a note on the discussion group for lit-theory class: ours isn't big and isn't run by a TA after all. It's only us grad students, and Dr. Keith himself is running it. Our work is different--harder, in some ways--from what the undergrads will be doing. I guess this shouldn't have been a surprise. What was a surprise was being one of the only students in the group with no background in theory. This should be interesting.
And one more thing: not included in my otherwise-all-inclusive rent, as it turns out, is telephone service. So my sole number right now is my new cell number; my family finally committed to the Verizon thing (if the Twins' family did it first, you know we're behind the times, haha!). If you don't have that and would like it, drop me an e-mail or IM or whatever. I can call people for free after 9 PM on weekdays or anytime between Friday night and noon on Sunday, and if you're a fellow Verizoner, I can apparently call you whenever I want for free. So let me know.
And that's, so far, the way it is.
-Laurel
8.28.2007
Break at Bartle, the Second
Tuesday, 3:54 PM. The bus thing went better today, though again, this was not because I was particularly smart or skilled. The transportation is free, though (well, sort of, as you'll be able to tell from the second part of this sentence); apparently our student services fee covers the cost of the rides. All I have to do is show my ID. Well, forget the parking pass, then.
Yesterday's creative nonfiction class went all right. Dr. Heywood "remembers me from orientation," but since I didn't say anything at orientation besides the point where we all introduced ourselves, she must know me because, when I drove down from Syracuse for the orientation (it was only two hours long, and I hadn't moved in yet), I hit the incoming-freshman traffic and was therefore twenty minutes late, which was very noticeable in our small orientation room. I suppose that's memorable, but not quite in the way I was hoping for.
Today was the first part of Intro to Literary Theory and Criticism (which, I can tell already, I'm going to end up abbreviating to something like "Theory and Crit" or "Lit-Crit"), which, more than anything else, was big. 215 students or something like that. To this point, thanks to the small classes of Alfred, the biggest class I've been in was more like 50 or 60...which looks to be about the size of my "discussion" group for the class, which starts in twenty minutes. We had to sign up for a discussion section as well as the lecture; they're run by TAs. I should mention that this is not because the graduate program is so big, but because those of us with no lit-theory knowledge (such as myself...we did a bit of crit in Spanish during the spring of my sophomore year at Alfred, as the angsty entries from that semester will attest, but what I ever knew of that, or ever truly needed to for Ariana, could fit in a thimble) were basically directed to an undergraduate course that's cross-listed as graduate. That is, the one I'm in now. At least it's a 300-level, and not a 100-level, or I'd feel more ignorant than I already do.
As a final note before I close: I've looked in about three places, and it feels as though there is no poster-tack to be had in all of Binghamton. You know where I think I'll check next? My beloved Wegmans, that's where. Yeah, dude.
-Laurel
Yesterday's creative nonfiction class went all right. Dr. Heywood "remembers me from orientation," but since I didn't say anything at orientation besides the point where we all introduced ourselves, she must know me because, when I drove down from Syracuse for the orientation (it was only two hours long, and I hadn't moved in yet), I hit the incoming-freshman traffic and was therefore twenty minutes late, which was very noticeable in our small orientation room. I suppose that's memorable, but not quite in the way I was hoping for.
Today was the first part of Intro to Literary Theory and Criticism (which, I can tell already, I'm going to end up abbreviating to something like "Theory and Crit" or "Lit-Crit"), which, more than anything else, was big. 215 students or something like that. To this point, thanks to the small classes of Alfred, the biggest class I've been in was more like 50 or 60...which looks to be about the size of my "discussion" group for the class, which starts in twenty minutes. We had to sign up for a discussion section as well as the lecture; they're run by TAs. I should mention that this is not because the graduate program is so big, but because those of us with no lit-theory knowledge (such as myself...we did a bit of crit in Spanish during the spring of my sophomore year at Alfred, as the angsty entries from that semester will attest, but what I ever knew of that, or ever truly needed to for Ariana, could fit in a thimble) were basically directed to an undergraduate course that's cross-listed as graduate. That is, the one I'm in now. At least it's a 300-level, and not a 100-level, or I'd feel more ignorant than I already do.
As a final note before I close: I've looked in about three places, and it feels as though there is no poster-tack to be had in all of Binghamton. You know where I think I'll check next? My beloved Wegmans, that's where. Yeah, dude.
-Laurel
8.27.2007
Aaand...break!
Greetings from (the confusingly-big) Bartle Library, where I decided to spend my hourlong break between classes today. Binghamton goes well; I'll describe my apartment and apartmentmates in more detail soon.
As for today's beginning of classes, well, I didn't leave myself enough time to figure out the bus schedule, so I ended up driving to campus today and parking in the paid-visitor lot (luckily for me, Creative Nonfiction will most likely end very early today). I guess that's the price of negligence; I'll do better tomorrow. ...It looks like the buses are so cheap (potentially free with my ID; I'm still not sure) and often (running every half-hour) that there's no point in my paying for a student parking pass.
Against what felt like all odds, I did, soli Deo gloria, get to my Fictions of the Diaspora class on time (they'd put it in a building whose abbreviation I couldn't decipher well on my schedule sheet--then, when I did know where I was going, I still had to find it), so my graduate career began on a positive note. Said class looks to be super-interesting, and so far Dr. Strehle is cool--though I can't help thinking that she looks sort of like a high school substitute teacher. She must resemble one I only half-remember from real life.
And I did get to talk some after class with a fellow student, Aaryn. She remembered from our introductions that I was originally from Rochester (we were asked to give a sort of diaspora story from our family...being American, a lifelong New York State resident, and quite WASPy, the closest I could get was how much Rochester-to-Alfred had originally felt like one. It feels a bit presumptuous to compare the two, I know, but it paid off in that Aaryn and I came to have a topic of conversation), so she described the time she spent living in Batavia and how she'd also worked right near Tinseltown (for you non-Rochester readers, that's a big movie theater with an IMAX attached) for a while. (She also has a large, colorful tattoo on her shoulder of le petit prince, standing there on his planet.)
That's the news so far.
-Laurel
As for today's beginning of classes, well, I didn't leave myself enough time to figure out the bus schedule, so I ended up driving to campus today and parking in the paid-visitor lot (luckily for me, Creative Nonfiction will most likely end very early today). I guess that's the price of negligence; I'll do better tomorrow. ...It looks like the buses are so cheap (potentially free with my ID; I'm still not sure) and often (running every half-hour) that there's no point in my paying for a student parking pass.
Against what felt like all odds, I did, soli Deo gloria, get to my Fictions of the Diaspora class on time (they'd put it in a building whose abbreviation I couldn't decipher well on my schedule sheet--then, when I did know where I was going, I still had to find it), so my graduate career began on a positive note. Said class looks to be super-interesting, and so far Dr. Strehle is cool--though I can't help thinking that she looks sort of like a high school substitute teacher. She must resemble one I only half-remember from real life.
And I did get to talk some after class with a fellow student, Aaryn. She remembered from our introductions that I was originally from Rochester (we were asked to give a sort of diaspora story from our family...being American, a lifelong New York State resident, and quite WASPy, the closest I could get was how much Rochester-to-Alfred had originally felt like one. It feels a bit presumptuous to compare the two, I know, but it paid off in that Aaryn and I came to have a topic of conversation), so she described the time she spent living in Batavia and how she'd also worked right near Tinseltown (for you non-Rochester readers, that's a big movie theater with an IMAX attached) for a while. (She also has a large, colorful tattoo on her shoulder of le petit prince, standing there on his planet.)
That's the news so far.
-Laurel
8.22.2007
Erica's Wedding, Fourth and Final Entry:Breakfast for Twelve, Lunch for Three, Dinner for One
I soon figured out where Erica gets her shining talent for hospitality: at least partly from her parents. They were wonderful. Super-comfortable mattresses and couches, spread thickly and warmly and softly with blankets and pillows, had already been set up by the time we got there, and they told us to please eat some of their food, anything we wanted, because the wedding rehearsals and leftovers had filled their refrigerators (I think there was one in the basement) chock full. As far as students went, besides my car-group, there were Lindsey, Lisa and Andrew, Chelsi and Dave, Leann, and TJ.
It wasn't even ten yet, I don't think, but everyone was tired, especially Erica's parents, who got back to the house later than we all did. Most of us students stayed up for a bit, though we were all in pajamas really soon after arriving, and talked. (Several of us also combined forces to finish the leftover pizza that Erica's mom had mentioned.) Erica's dad joined us, and the dog hung about, too.
Their house is gorgeous--wooden, high-ceilinged, and hand-built. Erica's parents built it themselves years ago, with help from their families. It's in the middle of nowhere, so if the night hadn't been so cloudy, we'd have been able to see all kinds of stars. In fact, if I remember correctly, part of their roof is flat so that people can sit on it and stargaze. (Correct me, Joe, if I'm wrong. I know they have something set up for looking up at the sky, but maybe it's not actually part of their roof.)
Before too long, though--it was maybe eleven-something, maybe not even that late--I decided I was done for the night, and went into the room where the beds were all set up. I took a couch, cuddled down into it, and soon fell asleep. I woke up for a bit around six or so the next morning because a thunderstorm had begun--rain was pouring down, thunder was crashing, and I could see lightning through the windows--but I was too tired to get up then, so I fell back asleep and dreamed for a while longer.
But it was fun to wake up. Lindsey'd had the idea, the night before, that we students should all make breakfast as a thank-you to Erica's parents for being generally amazing. So we set about cooking a morning feast for twelve. TJ and Dave, soon after waking, had borrowed some raingear (there was still a heavy drizzle, though it no longer stormed) and gone out to pick blueberries that were ripe on Erica's family's bushes; there were a lot to be had.
Soon we had a busy, enthusiastic, mildly-chaotic culinary sight that would have made Erica proud. Tom stood at a flat griddle on the stove, making an incredible number of pancakes, each one incorporating some of the freshly-picked blueberries. Simultaneously, I was making Canadian bacon under their oven's broiler, watching the thinly-sliced rounds to try to keep them from crossing the fine line into what Lisa called "ham chips." Lisa, for her part, stood at the counter by the sink, scrambling two dozen eggs in a large, deep electric skillet. Leann was in the living room, giving Erica's mom a foot massage. Emily and Andrew were also in the living room, keeping the dog content (and conveniently not in the kitchen) by playing with it. And Chelsi and Lindsey basically directed things, got out juice and a huge jug of maple syrup, and generally made themselves useful. Maybe it was one of them, or maybe it was TJ, who drew out a thank-you card for us to sign as well.
(All this reminds me: lateish my junior year, when Albert and Tom and I were the Breakfast of Champions, wasn't I Canadian Bacon? Or was Tom Canadian Bacon, and I English Muffin? I know that's more intuitive, but I don't know that it's what actually happened. ...What on earth gave us the idea for that bizarre little lark, anyway?)
Thus it was that, around a full table expanded to its limit, we had pretty much the most warm and wonderful breakfast I've had all summer, which is saying something, since I had some nice ones in Alfred, too. Erica's dad talked about building the house; we were all curious about it and about other such things. The food was all tasty. We got to admire our teamwork.
There was more lazy hanging out after breakfast, and a Mentos-dropped-into-a-bottle-of-Diet-Coke display out in the yard (Emily, eager to show the trick to those of us who hadn't seen it, had brought the stuff all the way to Pennsylvania), but somewhere between eleven and noon, we all figured that we ought to go.
So we all set out for home (except Lisa and Andrew, who went to go see a pottery thing not far away); our car was the last to leave, and again Tom drove while I navigated. Since the Meadville church is not very near Erica's house, it took a lot of driving along a different route to get back to Route 86, but eventually we did, and went along listening mostly to folkdancing music. We eventually stopped for a bathrooms-and-sustenance break at McDonald's, not all that far from Belmont, and got back to Alfred sometime after two.
After getting my car back from Peter and Janet's house (and finding my cell phone--the one blight on the morning had been worrying about where it was; I'd had to use TJ's the night before to let my parents know that I was alive and staying at Erica's...turns out my phone'd been in my car for the whole weekend, and I just hadn't known so for sure) and talking to Janet for a few minutes, I hugged Tom and Emily goodbye until further notice and went back to the apartment to grab my last few things. This took longer than I expected, but that was okay, and I also got to see Jess, who was still around, and tell her all about the wedding and the fun that had followed.
After leaving the apartment for good, though, I still wasn't done, for I went to Openhym, Joel's House, and Bartlett and snapped a picture of each one. Then I made one last trip to the Box of Books (both the library itself, to drop off books I had out, and to the book-exchange stand, where I left some and took a couple of others). Then, completing the circuit, I went by 8 Park to take my final places-I've-lived picture. Then, in silence because my iPod had inconveniently frozen and therefore I couldn't play the blues-version alma mater, sap that I am, I left campus for the last time as a student.
I tried to get to the bank to close down my account, but it being 4:05, of course I had missed them by five minutes, so I called my house from the parking lot, leaving a message that I'd be home around seven, and not to wait for me on dinner, since I probably would have eaten already.
I didn't stop to eat after all, though, simply snacking instead from a can of chow mein noodles that I'd brought from the apartment. So I had dinner alone, on some kind of tasty leftover something. An odd finish to the day, after its peopled start.
Thus ends my account, which in parts was probably quite dull, but it's a record for my own benefit as well, so it'll stand more or less as written. I've been home ever since, except for when my family spent a few days on vacation in Canada. On Saturday I move to Binghamton; classes start on Monday. More to follow, on some other subject, before too long.
-Laurel
It wasn't even ten yet, I don't think, but everyone was tired, especially Erica's parents, who got back to the house later than we all did. Most of us students stayed up for a bit, though we were all in pajamas really soon after arriving, and talked. (Several of us also combined forces to finish the leftover pizza that Erica's mom had mentioned.) Erica's dad joined us, and the dog hung about, too.
Their house is gorgeous--wooden, high-ceilinged, and hand-built. Erica's parents built it themselves years ago, with help from their families. It's in the middle of nowhere, so if the night hadn't been so cloudy, we'd have been able to see all kinds of stars. In fact, if I remember correctly, part of their roof is flat so that people can sit on it and stargaze. (Correct me, Joe, if I'm wrong. I know they have something set up for looking up at the sky, but maybe it's not actually part of their roof.)
Before too long, though--it was maybe eleven-something, maybe not even that late--I decided I was done for the night, and went into the room where the beds were all set up. I took a couch, cuddled down into it, and soon fell asleep. I woke up for a bit around six or so the next morning because a thunderstorm had begun--rain was pouring down, thunder was crashing, and I could see lightning through the windows--but I was too tired to get up then, so I fell back asleep and dreamed for a while longer.
But it was fun to wake up. Lindsey'd had the idea, the night before, that we students should all make breakfast as a thank-you to Erica's parents for being generally amazing. So we set about cooking a morning feast for twelve. TJ and Dave, soon after waking, had borrowed some raingear (there was still a heavy drizzle, though it no longer stormed) and gone out to pick blueberries that were ripe on Erica's family's bushes; there were a lot to be had.
Soon we had a busy, enthusiastic, mildly-chaotic culinary sight that would have made Erica proud. Tom stood at a flat griddle on the stove, making an incredible number of pancakes, each one incorporating some of the freshly-picked blueberries. Simultaneously, I was making Canadian bacon under their oven's broiler, watching the thinly-sliced rounds to try to keep them from crossing the fine line into what Lisa called "ham chips." Lisa, for her part, stood at the counter by the sink, scrambling two dozen eggs in a large, deep electric skillet. Leann was in the living room, giving Erica's mom a foot massage. Emily and Andrew were also in the living room, keeping the dog content (and conveniently not in the kitchen) by playing with it. And Chelsi and Lindsey basically directed things, got out juice and a huge jug of maple syrup, and generally made themselves useful. Maybe it was one of them, or maybe it was TJ, who drew out a thank-you card for us to sign as well.
(All this reminds me: lateish my junior year, when Albert and Tom and I were the Breakfast of Champions, wasn't I Canadian Bacon? Or was Tom Canadian Bacon, and I English Muffin? I know that's more intuitive, but I don't know that it's what actually happened. ...What on earth gave us the idea for that bizarre little lark, anyway?)
Thus it was that, around a full table expanded to its limit, we had pretty much the most warm and wonderful breakfast I've had all summer, which is saying something, since I had some nice ones in Alfred, too. Erica's dad talked about building the house; we were all curious about it and about other such things. The food was all tasty. We got to admire our teamwork.
There was more lazy hanging out after breakfast, and a Mentos-dropped-into-a-bottle-of-Diet-Coke display out in the yard (Emily, eager to show the trick to those of us who hadn't seen it, had brought the stuff all the way to Pennsylvania), but somewhere between eleven and noon, we all figured that we ought to go.
So we all set out for home (except Lisa and Andrew, who went to go see a pottery thing not far away); our car was the last to leave, and again Tom drove while I navigated. Since the Meadville church is not very near Erica's house, it took a lot of driving along a different route to get back to Route 86, but eventually we did, and went along listening mostly to folkdancing music. We eventually stopped for a bathrooms-and-sustenance break at McDonald's, not all that far from Belmont, and got back to Alfred sometime after two.
After getting my car back from Peter and Janet's house (and finding my cell phone--the one blight on the morning had been worrying about where it was; I'd had to use TJ's the night before to let my parents know that I was alive and staying at Erica's...turns out my phone'd been in my car for the whole weekend, and I just hadn't known so for sure) and talking to Janet for a few minutes, I hugged Tom and Emily goodbye until further notice and went back to the apartment to grab my last few things. This took longer than I expected, but that was okay, and I also got to see Jess, who was still around, and tell her all about the wedding and the fun that had followed.
After leaving the apartment for good, though, I still wasn't done, for I went to Openhym, Joel's House, and Bartlett and snapped a picture of each one. Then I made one last trip to the Box of Books (both the library itself, to drop off books I had out, and to the book-exchange stand, where I left some and took a couple of others). Then, completing the circuit, I went by 8 Park to take my final places-I've-lived picture. Then, in silence because my iPod had inconveniently frozen and therefore I couldn't play the blues-version alma mater, sap that I am, I left campus for the last time as a student.
I tried to get to the bank to close down my account, but it being 4:05, of course I had missed them by five minutes, so I called my house from the parking lot, leaving a message that I'd be home around seven, and not to wait for me on dinner, since I probably would have eaten already.
I didn't stop to eat after all, though, simply snacking instead from a can of chow mein noodles that I'd brought from the apartment. So I had dinner alone, on some kind of tasty leftover something. An odd finish to the day, after its peopled start.
Thus ends my account, which in parts was probably quite dull, but it's a record for my own benefit as well, so it'll stand more or less as written. I've been home ever since, except for when my family spent a few days on vacation in Canada. On Saturday I move to Binghamton; classes start on Monday. More to follow, on some other subject, before too long.
-Laurel
8.21.2007
Erica's Wedding, Third Entry: "And we say, 'You guys/Have the right kind of love!'"
After running through the rain back to the car, we set off for the reception hall, with John and Libby following us, and maybe Kaleb, too. The first thing we passed on the way, to my surprise, was Allegheny College, one of the schools I'd considered most closely. I hadn't remembered where it was--my family had visited before I had a driver's license, so I'd paid essentially no attention then to how we'd gotten there (our arriving at night hadn't helped), and had forgotten in what town it stood--so this took me by surprise. It looked about the same, though it was missing the gorgeous carpet of fallen leaves (mostly golden, if my memory serves) that had adorned its grounds on the day I came. Its observatory, which is pretty distinct, also stuck out familiarly; Tom was impressed by its size.
The reception hall, some miles away from that, was slow to materialize. But just as we were starting to consider ourselves potentially lost, we found it; like the church, it was fairly simple but prettily and tastefully decorated (I really like that effect, and, as I say, Erica seems to like it, too). We found our seating assignments: we three of the same carload were together, and Joe, Andrea, Peter, and Janet were eventually to join us; Kaleb (with TJ and their friends) were at a table fairly close by, and John and Libby were across the room.
We had an appetizer of fruit and vegetables with dip, washed it down with some punch (and small sips of the bottled soda we'd been asked to take from a long table or two at the back...it being an alcohol-free reception, these were for the toast), and colored on our placemats. Erica and Josh had provided crayons for the purpose; anyone who wanted to leave them a picture was encouraged to do so. So, employing my truly pitiful art skills, I attempted to depict Erica and Josh's projected first fellowship dinner at their new apartment in Alfred (Erica was forever feeding people last year, and she and Josh have made it clear that their apartment is open to visitors at nearly all times, with little or no forewarning required). I tried to make it funny, drawing a large triangle across the page to signify the tabletop, so that it was from the perspective of the head of the table, and a huge throng of diners and their plates stretched off shrinkingly into the distance. It wasn't very good, of course, but it amused me to draw it, and I imagine (and hope) that it amused Erica to see it.
Erica and Josh eventually came in, skipping (no, seriously, they were), and took their place at their table. Josh's older brother (the best man) and Lindsey (maid of honor) made kind, funny speeches; we toasted the newlyweds; we had dinner. (Or maybe the toast came after dinner. But I think it came before.) Josh got out his guitar soon after and sang a song to Erica, which was sweet, though from where he stood, I couldn't make out some of the words over his playing. There was postdinner-but-predance hijinks: Tom and I pretended, just to our tablemates, to play our empty soda bottles like instruments (not just blowing across them, but doing strings, percussion, brass, woodwind, whatever); and Erica and Josh played this game where they went around the room and each table got to ask them any question they wanted. (This, as you can imagine, was both brave and foolish of them: the irrepressible Peter, of course, took our table's question riiiight up to the borderline of acceptibility, seeing if he could get Erica to come out in a rare blush. He succeeded.)
Afterwards there was the bouquet-tossing (Libby caught it--causing Joe, who's as of semi-recently engaged to Andrea, to harangue his new fiancee for not getting it first!) and dancing. The latter was mostly lame, since it was largely couple songs, and what wasn't was music that was sort of hard to dance to, and none of my friends were dancing anyway (except for Joe and Andrea, and sometimes John and Libby, but they were dancing in couples, which doesn't count). So I, eager to expend some energy and not just stand there, eventually ended up making vague dance-type motions with some of Josh's friends (we introduced ourselves, but I remember nobody's name, at this point), and then joined Lindsey and Leann's dance circle, which included and entertained most of the children who'd come. (Leann was wearing Ked-style sneakers under her dress by this point--if I remember, one was lime-sherbet green and the other was raspberry-sherbet pink. I'm not sure whether she was also wearing these during the ceremony, though I wouldn't be surprised.)
At one point, Lisa and Lindsey stopped the dancing to perform another song, this one funny. They'd changed all the words to Deep Blue Something's "Breakfast at Tiffany's," that song that got a lot of radio play around early middle school, and Lisa borrowed Josh's guitar so as to play it. After a comical false start (the original key turned out to be too low), they got through it, with Lisa making us laugh and cheer when she performed (and pretty well, too!) the guitar solo after the first chorus. It was very cute, and pretty much sent John into raptures (he does appreciate creativity pulled off with flair). I forget the verses, which described Erica and Josh planning the wedding, but still know the chorus. If you don't know Josh and Erica, it won't be as funny or sweet, but it ended with the line I quoted in the title: "And we say, 'You guys/Have the right kind of love!'"
The reception broke up at nine; Joe and Andrea, as well as John and Libby, had already left by this time, and I think Kaleb had, too. The rest of us, though, hugged the newlyweds goodbye as they stood in the reception hall in street clothes--they were off to start their honeymoon, which Josh had kept a surprise even to that moment (it turned out to be Seattle, though I'm not sure what made him choose it); Erica didn't know where she was going until she got to the airport the next morning.
As that was going on, we came outside one by one, where we were given bags of birdseed, and lined ourselves up in a gauntlet leading to Josh's car, which'd been made over for the occasion by the bridal party--all soap-drawings and streamers. This part took Erica and Josh by surprise, and they tore to the car, with us chucking seed at them all the way. They tore the streamer-things off the vehicle so they could get in; Josh rolled his wad into a ball and tossed it. (It came at me, so I reached out and caught it; Dave-from-IV [not Snyder] remarked that this meant that my car would be the next to be decorated.) We waved and shouted and stuff, and they drove off.
All that was left now was to drive back to Erica's house, where her parents had promised free lodging to anyone needing it. I got Erica's mom to give me oral directions, which I impressed myself by remembering; Tom once again played taxi driver, and we got to the big house that was Erica's, just after various members of her bridal party.
More on that and the next morning in what I assume will be this series's final entry. I don't promise it'll be the very next entry, since there's other stuff I might want to mention before that, but I do plan to write it soon, before I forget even more than I already have over the last two-and-something weeks!
-Laurel
The reception hall, some miles away from that, was slow to materialize. But just as we were starting to consider ourselves potentially lost, we found it; like the church, it was fairly simple but prettily and tastefully decorated (I really like that effect, and, as I say, Erica seems to like it, too). We found our seating assignments: we three of the same carload were together, and Joe, Andrea, Peter, and Janet were eventually to join us; Kaleb (with TJ and their friends) were at a table fairly close by, and John and Libby were across the room.
We had an appetizer of fruit and vegetables with dip, washed it down with some punch (and small sips of the bottled soda we'd been asked to take from a long table or two at the back...it being an alcohol-free reception, these were for the toast), and colored on our placemats. Erica and Josh had provided crayons for the purpose; anyone who wanted to leave them a picture was encouraged to do so. So, employing my truly pitiful art skills, I attempted to depict Erica and Josh's projected first fellowship dinner at their new apartment in Alfred (Erica was forever feeding people last year, and she and Josh have made it clear that their apartment is open to visitors at nearly all times, with little or no forewarning required). I tried to make it funny, drawing a large triangle across the page to signify the tabletop, so that it was from the perspective of the head of the table, and a huge throng of diners and their plates stretched off shrinkingly into the distance. It wasn't very good, of course, but it amused me to draw it, and I imagine (and hope) that it amused Erica to see it.
Erica and Josh eventually came in, skipping (no, seriously, they were), and took their place at their table. Josh's older brother (the best man) and Lindsey (maid of honor) made kind, funny speeches; we toasted the newlyweds; we had dinner. (Or maybe the toast came after dinner. But I think it came before.) Josh got out his guitar soon after and sang a song to Erica, which was sweet, though from where he stood, I couldn't make out some of the words over his playing. There was postdinner-but-predance hijinks: Tom and I pretended, just to our tablemates, to play our empty soda bottles like instruments (not just blowing across them, but doing strings, percussion, brass, woodwind, whatever); and Erica and Josh played this game where they went around the room and each table got to ask them any question they wanted. (This, as you can imagine, was both brave and foolish of them: the irrepressible Peter, of course, took our table's question riiiight up to the borderline of acceptibility, seeing if he could get Erica to come out in a rare blush. He succeeded.)
Afterwards there was the bouquet-tossing (Libby caught it--causing Joe, who's as of semi-recently engaged to Andrea, to harangue his new fiancee for not getting it first!) and dancing. The latter was mostly lame, since it was largely couple songs, and what wasn't was music that was sort of hard to dance to, and none of my friends were dancing anyway (except for Joe and Andrea, and sometimes John and Libby, but they were dancing in couples, which doesn't count). So I, eager to expend some energy and not just stand there, eventually ended up making vague dance-type motions with some of Josh's friends (we introduced ourselves, but I remember nobody's name, at this point), and then joined Lindsey and Leann's dance circle, which included and entertained most of the children who'd come. (Leann was wearing Ked-style sneakers under her dress by this point--if I remember, one was lime-sherbet green and the other was raspberry-sherbet pink. I'm not sure whether she was also wearing these during the ceremony, though I wouldn't be surprised.)
At one point, Lisa and Lindsey stopped the dancing to perform another song, this one funny. They'd changed all the words to Deep Blue Something's "Breakfast at Tiffany's," that song that got a lot of radio play around early middle school, and Lisa borrowed Josh's guitar so as to play it. After a comical false start (the original key turned out to be too low), they got through it, with Lisa making us laugh and cheer when she performed (and pretty well, too!) the guitar solo after the first chorus. It was very cute, and pretty much sent John into raptures (he does appreciate creativity pulled off with flair). I forget the verses, which described Erica and Josh planning the wedding, but still know the chorus. If you don't know Josh and Erica, it won't be as funny or sweet, but it ended with the line I quoted in the title: "And we say, 'You guys/Have the right kind of love!'"
The reception broke up at nine; Joe and Andrea, as well as John and Libby, had already left by this time, and I think Kaleb had, too. The rest of us, though, hugged the newlyweds goodbye as they stood in the reception hall in street clothes--they were off to start their honeymoon, which Josh had kept a surprise even to that moment (it turned out to be Seattle, though I'm not sure what made him choose it); Erica didn't know where she was going until she got to the airport the next morning.
As that was going on, we came outside one by one, where we were given bags of birdseed, and lined ourselves up in a gauntlet leading to Josh's car, which'd been made over for the occasion by the bridal party--all soap-drawings and streamers. This part took Erica and Josh by surprise, and they tore to the car, with us chucking seed at them all the way. They tore the streamer-things off the vehicle so they could get in; Josh rolled his wad into a ball and tossed it. (It came at me, so I reached out and caught it; Dave-from-IV [not Snyder] remarked that this meant that my car would be the next to be decorated.) We waved and shouted and stuff, and they drove off.
All that was left now was to drive back to Erica's house, where her parents had promised free lodging to anyone needing it. I got Erica's mom to give me oral directions, which I impressed myself by remembering; Tom once again played taxi driver, and we got to the big house that was Erica's, just after various members of her bridal party.
More on that and the next morning in what I assume will be this series's final entry. I don't promise it'll be the very next entry, since there's other stuff I might want to mention before that, but I do plan to write it soon, before I forget even more than I already have over the last two-and-something weeks!
-Laurel
8.16.2007
Erica's Wedding, Second Entry: The Ceremony
It's not particularly interesting to talk about our finding our seats at the wedding, sitting through the program, etc., so I'll stick to the important things, as far as the ceremony goes.
It was beautiful in the way that Erica seems to like best--everything was pretty and elegant in an unostentatious way. The church and the reception hall didn't have a lot of decorations, but the ones there were well-placed and to very pleasing effect. Her dress, too, was simple: white and satiny-looking, strapless, and a very short train with small (fabric, I assume) flowers sewn to it.
*
The bridesmaids' dresses were all sage green, but each was a different style--Andrea's, for example, was sleeved and modest (suited in that way to her personality); Leann's was strapless (and showed off a criss-cross in white of untanned skin!); Lindsey's was pretty and laced up in the back.
*
After a year of being Erica's roommate, and after seeing so much of Josh across that time, I feel like I ought to know what their facial expressions mean--at least Erica's, right? Yet the ones I saw on them are ones that I feel like maybe people who know them better would reinterpret. Still, to me it looked surprisingly like Josh was trying not to choke up out of happiness...but that if Erica's obvious joy broke out in full, it'd be via laughter instead of tears. I looked at her, of course, at her "I do," but right after that I looked, not at her or Josh, but at her brother Jason. He broke into a wide smile. That, at least, was unmistakeable.
*
Lisa and Lindsey sang as well as serving bridesmaid duty. They led the hymn, which was "How Deep the Father's Love for Us," and the whole congregation sang with them. But they also had a song to themselves: after going through the vows, Erica and Josh lit a candle and (as far as I can tell, since their backs were to us at that point) prayed, during which Lisa and Lindsey sang "In Christ Alone." ...I wasn't surprised. Apparently it's Lindsey's favorite IV hymn as well, but in my mind it's connected with Erica, who loves it and who once sang it in a kind attempt to comfort me when I was crying and she didn't know why (but saw that I was frightened as much as I was sad). It was even before we were roommates; all this past year, when we sang it in chapel, I thought of that night, and of her.
*
After the ceremony, we didn't file out and stand there waiting to shake hands with the newlyweds. Probably realizing that the church was too small for that, and also wanting to be hospitable (that's them completely), Erica and Josh instead dismissed us themselves, row by row, stopping to shake hands with or embrace everyone in every pew. Erica and I hugged. She thanked me for coming and we complimented each other on how we looked. Maybe it was then that I began to wonder whether her joy had been the laughing kind, for by the time she said my name, there was a note in it that was closer to tears.
*
Among the people there whom I hadn't seen all summer were TJ and Kaleb. Kaleb had gotten caught in traffic (apparently my car had just managed to outrun it, so to speak, since it was on one of the same roads we'd traveled) and hadn't been able to get to the church before the service began, but he'd had a good vantage point from where he stood outside the sanctuary and had seen everything important. After the ceremony, Tom, Emily, TJ, John (and, by extension, Libby), and I all came over to him, and we fell to talking, a main conversation with occasional asides between a member or two or three of the circle. So we all stayed around talking until most of the people in the church had left for the reception (though not Josh and Erica and the bridesmaids, who were still doing pictures with Janet), signed the little well-wishing cards they had out and tried to write witty or non-cheesy things on them, and went out into the drizzle to go to the reception, of which I plan to write when next I post.
-Laurel
It was beautiful in the way that Erica seems to like best--everything was pretty and elegant in an unostentatious way. The church and the reception hall didn't have a lot of decorations, but the ones there were well-placed and to very pleasing effect. Her dress, too, was simple: white and satiny-looking, strapless, and a very short train with small (fabric, I assume) flowers sewn to it.
*
The bridesmaids' dresses were all sage green, but each was a different style--Andrea's, for example, was sleeved and modest (suited in that way to her personality); Leann's was strapless (and showed off a criss-cross in white of untanned skin!); Lindsey's was pretty and laced up in the back.
*
After a year of being Erica's roommate, and after seeing so much of Josh across that time, I feel like I ought to know what their facial expressions mean--at least Erica's, right? Yet the ones I saw on them are ones that I feel like maybe people who know them better would reinterpret. Still, to me it looked surprisingly like Josh was trying not to choke up out of happiness...but that if Erica's obvious joy broke out in full, it'd be via laughter instead of tears. I looked at her, of course, at her "I do," but right after that I looked, not at her or Josh, but at her brother Jason. He broke into a wide smile. That, at least, was unmistakeable.
*
Lisa and Lindsey sang as well as serving bridesmaid duty. They led the hymn, which was "How Deep the Father's Love for Us," and the whole congregation sang with them. But they also had a song to themselves: after going through the vows, Erica and Josh lit a candle and (as far as I can tell, since their backs were to us at that point) prayed, during which Lisa and Lindsey sang "In Christ Alone." ...I wasn't surprised. Apparently it's Lindsey's favorite IV hymn as well, but in my mind it's connected with Erica, who loves it and who once sang it in a kind attempt to comfort me when I was crying and she didn't know why (but saw that I was frightened as much as I was sad). It was even before we were roommates; all this past year, when we sang it in chapel, I thought of that night, and of her.
*
After the ceremony, we didn't file out and stand there waiting to shake hands with the newlyweds. Probably realizing that the church was too small for that, and also wanting to be hospitable (that's them completely), Erica and Josh instead dismissed us themselves, row by row, stopping to shake hands with or embrace everyone in every pew. Erica and I hugged. She thanked me for coming and we complimented each other on how we looked. Maybe it was then that I began to wonder whether her joy had been the laughing kind, for by the time she said my name, there was a note in it that was closer to tears.
*
Among the people there whom I hadn't seen all summer were TJ and Kaleb. Kaleb had gotten caught in traffic (apparently my car had just managed to outrun it, so to speak, since it was on one of the same roads we'd traveled) and hadn't been able to get to the church before the service began, but he'd had a good vantage point from where he stood outside the sanctuary and had seen everything important. After the ceremony, Tom, Emily, TJ, John (and, by extension, Libby), and I all came over to him, and we fell to talking, a main conversation with occasional asides between a member or two or three of the circle. So we all stayed around talking until most of the people in the church had left for the reception (though not Josh and Erica and the bridesmaids, who were still doing pictures with Janet), signed the little well-wishing cards they had out and tried to write witty or non-cheesy things on them, and went out into the drizzle to go to the reception, of which I plan to write when next I post.
-Laurel
8.12.2007
bee bee ell
I've been trying to write up the rest of Erica's wedding, but I'm making it sound boring as all get-out, so apparently I'm going to have to come back to it when I've gotten a little more originality together, or when I really have a heart for it.
If that's not by tomorrow, then it's probably going to take a while, because my family's going on vacation starting tomorrow morning; we'll be gone for the better part of the week.
-Laurel
If that's not by tomorrow, then it's probably going to take a while, because my family's going on vacation starting tomorrow morning; we'll be gone for the better part of the week.
-Laurel
8.09.2007
Erica's Wedding, First Entry: Getting There Is...
This past Sunday (the 5th), Erica (my roommate from this past year--not to be confused with Jess, my roommate this summer) got married to Josh, the dryly-humorous, musical, scientific pastor's son with whom she's been since late high school. He, being my age instead of Erica's, graduated from Grove City this past May; he'll be in Alfred with Erica (they have an apartment) this coming year as she finishes out her own degree. Tom, Emily, and I decided long ago that, since we'd all been invited to the wedding, the best idea was to carpool. Since that decision began our adventure, I'll start my account of this past Sunday there:
When Tom and I had planned the trip, largely through e-mail messages sent while he was at home and I was working the last week of camp (all girls, remember), I'd taken charge of chronology and navigation and figured that we and Emily should meet at 11:10, on the morning of the wedding, at the McClains'. Emily would already be at their house (alone: Peter and Janet had gone down the day before because Janet was wedding photographer; their son had been left with Janet's parents), which made it as convenient a gathering-spot as any. By 11:30, we three would depart Alfred together--for several reasons, we had planned to take my car and have me drive--and make our way toward Meadville, Pennsylvania, where stood the church in which Erica and Josh were to be married at 3:30.
It wasn't going to take a solid four hours to get there--more like three-hours-fifteen or a little less, by my combined MapQuest-and-guesswork estimation. But for one thing, I planned for us to arrive by 3:15, not 3:30. For another, I knew there was construction on I-86W, so I allowed twenty minutes' delay. And because Emily and I didn't want to ride all the way there in our dress clothes (mine being an actual dress), I allowed an additional space of time for a superhero-style quick-change in the restroom of the Burger King that had been mentioned as a landmark in the partial directions given on my wedding invitation. So I allowed the extra forty-five minutes or so, figuring that even if all went much faster than planned and we got to the church at 2:45, at least Joe would be there already with nothing much to do (since Andrea was a bridesmaid, but he wasn't a groomsman), and we could hang out with him.
The complications started very late on Saturday night, when I concluded that we weren't going to be able to take my car after all: I had just filled it with the contents of my room. See, according to Res-Life, we summer-RAs had to be out for good by the morning of the 6th--and it'd be the afternoon of that day by the time we got back from the wedding. So I'd known that I'd have to put most everything in my car before I left for the wedding, just in case the unthinkable happened and we really were turned out on Monday morning (though it looked unlikely), and come back after the wedding for the things I hadn't yet packed. I'd hoped to be able to arrange things such that most or all of it would fit in my trunk (which is roomy), so that Emily and Tom and I could still take my car to Pennsylvania. This very much didn't happen: I saw that I wouldn't be able to fit even one passenger other than myself, let alone two. I also realized something that hadn't crossed my mind theretofore: I couldn't take Jess, Emily, and myself to church tomorrow morning, thanks to the same lack of car space. I realized that we'd have to call someone to pick us up.
So Laura and Josh (not Erica's Josh, obviously) graciously agreed on Sunday morning to ferry us to Wellsville, since they were going to church themselves. And despite getting there late (we were already running late when we discovered that Emily was still asleep--but she readied herself remarkably quickly, and looked quite good, which I wouldn't've, given the same very small allotment of time), the service was very good, though it ended at such a time that we should have left for home right away.
Unfortunately, we couldn't: Laura and Josh were staying for Bible study, so we'd arranged a ride back to Alfred with Bev and Harold, who weren't going to the wedding because they had a family thing (that didn't involve Sandy/Roger, who did go). This was fine, but it met delay because Cara, who was in church with us and was also trying to go to the wedding, was having car trouble, and Harold wanted to take a look at it...there in the Wellsville Bible Church parking lot. And that was important, since it wasn't right for Cara to drive back in an unsafe car, but the problem was that Emily and I had to meet Tom--and that I still had to go back to the apartments and grab everything I needed for the weekend (the dress/stockings/shoes, the bag with my clothes and stuff for the next day, my sleeping bag and pillow, et cetera), and put a few last things in my car. Em'n'I couldn't ride back with anyone else; no other IV staff were in church that morning.
So when Tom called around eleven or so to say that he was almost to Alfred and would probably be early to Peter and Janet's, I had to answer that, well, we were still in Wellsville and were going to be late. And it must have been around eleven-twenty by the time Emily was dropped off at the McClains'--Tom was indeed already there. I was dropped off at the apartments a couple minutes later and started to get ready.
As it was, then, we weren't going to get underway on time. Still, I was startled when Tom called to ask whether I had a paper clip. I didn't. He persisted, asking whether I had this or that or something else that could be bent into different shapes. I didn't.
"What's the problem we're trying to solve?" I finally asked, confused by Tom's silence so far on the point, and admittedly a little annoyed at his persistence, considering that I'd explained that everything had been packed up.
His answer was a bit hesitant-sounding, as though he expected either fury or panic from my end (a bad sign--do I still merit such dread, a year and more since I was VPS over him? Of course I was a mercurial freak then, but I didn't think I still was): "Well, Emily accidentally locked herself out of Peter and Janet's." And the stuff she needed for the weekend was inside. Clearly, this was not her day.
He needn't have worried: I actually only half-registered the problem because I was busy wondering about the time that was rapidly passing and the degree to which I still needed to get ready; would I be able to get to the McClains' by 11:45, which I'd recalculated as our latest safe leaving time? It rather looked like I wouldn't. Anyway, since I couldn't help, Tom let me go to try calling Harold, who indeed ended up coming over and helping them break into the house. So they were ready by the time I finally got there.
And I didn't get over there quite on time, either: it was probably 11:50, and Tom had called again during the interval to ask me to bring some music (he'd forgotten all of his), and I'd asked him what we were to do about lunch, since going without it entirely seemed like a bad idea (churches, even during weddings, are not so loud that my stomach lodging protest would go unnoticed--hello, people near me in chapel on the few mornings I've missed breakfast). He'd already eaten, but came up with the idea (I certainly had no better one) of asking Tim to make Emily and me a sandwich each, which we could grab by stopping at his apartment on our way out of town. Tim obligingly agreed, but when we three had packed all our stuff into Tom's car and driven it to Tim's apartment (perhaps five minutes or more after Tom had called), Tim had only just gotten everything out and was just starting on my sandwich. Grateful though I was for any food at all, and for Tim's good humor on the matter, I ended up making Emily's sandwich myself, just to speed the process.
Thus it was noon before we well and truly got on the road. Now, according to my calculations, we'd get there on time if there were no delays...if construction didn't really slow us down at all, and if I really had overestimated the distance to the church, such that Em'n'I still had a couple of minutes beforehand to change.
So Tom drove and I rode as the front passenger, navigating and deejaying. Emily's fairly music-tolerant, and she invariably falls asleep on long car rides anyway, so music-wise, I concentrated on not adding insult to Tom's injury, since he hadn't planned on three-plus hours of driving on top of the hours that brought him from home to Alfred. As I believe I've briefly mentioned, he's rather more picky than Emily or I, so I stuck to whatever seemed suitable, trying to save the folk dancing music for the way back on Monday.
All in all, despite our late start, despite construction slowing us down even longer than I'd anticipated, despite some drizzle, and despite our actually missing a turn in Meadville the first time and having to backtrack about a mile (the directions being, in our defense, unclear), it was a fairly pleasant drive (and a good sandwich). And to my considerable surprise, we managed to arrive at the Burger King, not only before 3:25 (that'd been my silent, doomed-feeling estimate while we were stuck in construction back in New York), but at more like 3:00. (I know what you're thinking, but if Tom was doing more than five miles over for most of the trip, I didn't notice.) We got out and did our thing--the rain had turned to pouring, which made the hair situation a little more interesting--got back in, and managed to arrive at the church at...could it be? It could. It was 3:17.
End of section; more to come.
-Laurel
When Tom and I had planned the trip, largely through e-mail messages sent while he was at home and I was working the last week of camp (all girls, remember), I'd taken charge of chronology and navigation and figured that we and Emily should meet at 11:10, on the morning of the wedding, at the McClains'. Emily would already be at their house (alone: Peter and Janet had gone down the day before because Janet was wedding photographer; their son had been left with Janet's parents), which made it as convenient a gathering-spot as any. By 11:30, we three would depart Alfred together--for several reasons, we had planned to take my car and have me drive--and make our way toward Meadville, Pennsylvania, where stood the church in which Erica and Josh were to be married at 3:30.
It wasn't going to take a solid four hours to get there--more like three-hours-fifteen or a little less, by my combined MapQuest-and-guesswork estimation. But for one thing, I planned for us to arrive by 3:15, not 3:30. For another, I knew there was construction on I-86W, so I allowed twenty minutes' delay. And because Emily and I didn't want to ride all the way there in our dress clothes (mine being an actual dress), I allowed an additional space of time for a superhero-style quick-change in the restroom of the Burger King that had been mentioned as a landmark in the partial directions given on my wedding invitation. So I allowed the extra forty-five minutes or so, figuring that even if all went much faster than planned and we got to the church at 2:45, at least Joe would be there already with nothing much to do (since Andrea was a bridesmaid, but he wasn't a groomsman), and we could hang out with him.
The complications started very late on Saturday night, when I concluded that we weren't going to be able to take my car after all: I had just filled it with the contents of my room. See, according to Res-Life, we summer-RAs had to be out for good by the morning of the 6th--and it'd be the afternoon of that day by the time we got back from the wedding. So I'd known that I'd have to put most everything in my car before I left for the wedding, just in case the unthinkable happened and we really were turned out on Monday morning (though it looked unlikely), and come back after the wedding for the things I hadn't yet packed. I'd hoped to be able to arrange things such that most or all of it would fit in my trunk (which is roomy), so that Emily and Tom and I could still take my car to Pennsylvania. This very much didn't happen: I saw that I wouldn't be able to fit even one passenger other than myself, let alone two. I also realized something that hadn't crossed my mind theretofore: I couldn't take Jess, Emily, and myself to church tomorrow morning, thanks to the same lack of car space. I realized that we'd have to call someone to pick us up.
So Laura and Josh (not Erica's Josh, obviously) graciously agreed on Sunday morning to ferry us to Wellsville, since they were going to church themselves. And despite getting there late (we were already running late when we discovered that Emily was still asleep--but she readied herself remarkably quickly, and looked quite good, which I wouldn't've, given the same very small allotment of time), the service was very good, though it ended at such a time that we should have left for home right away.
Unfortunately, we couldn't: Laura and Josh were staying for Bible study, so we'd arranged a ride back to Alfred with Bev and Harold, who weren't going to the wedding because they had a family thing (that didn't involve Sandy/Roger, who did go). This was fine, but it met delay because Cara, who was in church with us and was also trying to go to the wedding, was having car trouble, and Harold wanted to take a look at it...there in the Wellsville Bible Church parking lot. And that was important, since it wasn't right for Cara to drive back in an unsafe car, but the problem was that Emily and I had to meet Tom--and that I still had to go back to the apartments and grab everything I needed for the weekend (the dress/stockings/shoes, the bag with my clothes and stuff for the next day, my sleeping bag and pillow, et cetera), and put a few last things in my car. Em'n'I couldn't ride back with anyone else; no other IV staff were in church that morning.
So when Tom called around eleven or so to say that he was almost to Alfred and would probably be early to Peter and Janet's, I had to answer that, well, we were still in Wellsville and were going to be late. And it must have been around eleven-twenty by the time Emily was dropped off at the McClains'--Tom was indeed already there. I was dropped off at the apartments a couple minutes later and started to get ready.
As it was, then, we weren't going to get underway on time. Still, I was startled when Tom called to ask whether I had a paper clip. I didn't. He persisted, asking whether I had this or that or something else that could be bent into different shapes. I didn't.
"What's the problem we're trying to solve?" I finally asked, confused by Tom's silence so far on the point, and admittedly a little annoyed at his persistence, considering that I'd explained that everything had been packed up.
His answer was a bit hesitant-sounding, as though he expected either fury or panic from my end (a bad sign--do I still merit such dread, a year and more since I was VPS over him? Of course I was a mercurial freak then, but I didn't think I still was): "Well, Emily accidentally locked herself out of Peter and Janet's." And the stuff she needed for the weekend was inside. Clearly, this was not her day.
He needn't have worried: I actually only half-registered the problem because I was busy wondering about the time that was rapidly passing and the degree to which I still needed to get ready; would I be able to get to the McClains' by 11:45, which I'd recalculated as our latest safe leaving time? It rather looked like I wouldn't. Anyway, since I couldn't help, Tom let me go to try calling Harold, who indeed ended up coming over and helping them break into the house. So they were ready by the time I finally got there.
And I didn't get over there quite on time, either: it was probably 11:50, and Tom had called again during the interval to ask me to bring some music (he'd forgotten all of his), and I'd asked him what we were to do about lunch, since going without it entirely seemed like a bad idea (churches, even during weddings, are not so loud that my stomach lodging protest would go unnoticed--hello, people near me in chapel on the few mornings I've missed breakfast). He'd already eaten, but came up with the idea (I certainly had no better one) of asking Tim to make Emily and me a sandwich each, which we could grab by stopping at his apartment on our way out of town. Tim obligingly agreed, but when we three had packed all our stuff into Tom's car and driven it to Tim's apartment (perhaps five minutes or more after Tom had called), Tim had only just gotten everything out and was just starting on my sandwich. Grateful though I was for any food at all, and for Tim's good humor on the matter, I ended up making Emily's sandwich myself, just to speed the process.
Thus it was noon before we well and truly got on the road. Now, according to my calculations, we'd get there on time if there were no delays...if construction didn't really slow us down at all, and if I really had overestimated the distance to the church, such that Em'n'I still had a couple of minutes beforehand to change.
So Tom drove and I rode as the front passenger, navigating and deejaying. Emily's fairly music-tolerant, and she invariably falls asleep on long car rides anyway, so music-wise, I concentrated on not adding insult to Tom's injury, since he hadn't planned on three-plus hours of driving on top of the hours that brought him from home to Alfred. As I believe I've briefly mentioned, he's rather more picky than Emily or I, so I stuck to whatever seemed suitable, trying to save the folk dancing music for the way back on Monday.
All in all, despite our late start, despite construction slowing us down even longer than I'd anticipated, despite some drizzle, and despite our actually missing a turn in Meadville the first time and having to backtrack about a mile (the directions being, in our defense, unclear), it was a fairly pleasant drive (and a good sandwich). And to my considerable surprise, we managed to arrive at the Burger King, not only before 3:25 (that'd been my silent, doomed-feeling estimate while we were stuck in construction back in New York), but at more like 3:00. (I know what you're thinking, but if Tom was doing more than five miles over for most of the trip, I didn't notice.) We got out and did our thing--the rain had turned to pouring, which made the hair situation a little more interesting--got back in, and managed to arrive at the church at...could it be? It could. It was 3:17.
End of section; more to come.
-Laurel
8.06.2007
Note to My Circle of Friends
Dear Everybody,
Stop getting into car accidents, burning your skin to a crisp at bonfires, or in various other ways messing yourselves up and creeping others out. Yes?
[For the record, everyone's alive and has the use of all their limbs. And Erica's wedding was lovely and went well. More on that tomorrowish.]
Yours,
-Laurel
Stop getting into car accidents, burning your skin to a crisp at bonfires, or in various other ways messing yourselves up and creeping others out. Yes?
[For the record, everyone's alive and has the use of all their limbs. And Erica's wedding was lovely and went well. More on that tomorrowish.]
Yours,
-Laurel
8.04.2007
(dear little village, little town of mine)
Sara and Ryan, who've been in Bath because they're engaged and Ryan teaches English at Bath-Haverling, are in the Keuka Lake Players' Fiddler on the Roof this weekend. They're both part of the chorus, but each gets a few lines (Sara's in the form of a solo during the rumor song); Ryan shows up semi-frequently, in fact, when random townsmen are needed. Sara helped with the costuming, too.
So tonight I drove out to Haverling for opening night. Despite Sara's darkish warning that it was only community theatre, I thought the show was quite well done (though the singers should probably work on counting rests properly), and anyway, I'm a sucker for Fiddler. I've loved it since elementary school and can never decide whether that's my favorite musical, or whether Music Man is. Watching the show, there were times I found it hard not to sing along.
I don't really have much else to say besides that. It was a great way to spend a night, and I liked driving home in the dark with my iPod playing and the windows down.
Tomorrow: cleaning and packing--ewwww--and a dinnertime Friendly's trip with Jess because her parents say she should go while she's in Alfred (apparently there aren't any Friendly's-es in Arizona...?). Sunday: the wedding. Monday: back to Syracuse.
Now: bed.
-Laurel
So tonight I drove out to Haverling for opening night. Despite Sara's darkish warning that it was only community theatre, I thought the show was quite well done (though the singers should probably work on counting rests properly), and anyway, I'm a sucker for Fiddler. I've loved it since elementary school and can never decide whether that's my favorite musical, or whether Music Man is. Watching the show, there were times I found it hard not to sing along.
I don't really have much else to say besides that. It was a great way to spend a night, and I liked driving home in the dark with my iPod playing and the windows down.
Tomorrow: cleaning and packing--ewwww--and a dinnertime Friendly's trip with Jess because her parents say she should go while she's in Alfred (apparently there aren't any Friendly's-es in Arizona...?). Sunday: the wedding. Monday: back to Syracuse.
Now: bed.
-Laurel
8.02.2007
"Time is a train/Makes the future the past..."
Hello from the official end of camps; the girls went home today. Because of all the construction around The Brick, we girls were moved into Openhym for the week. Lest you worry how they got along with the guys, who'd also been living there this summer, fear not: there was only one institute this week, and it was Women Leaders of Tomorrow. No guys at all; Tom and Jonathan went home, in fact, since they're weren't on the payroll for this week. (Josh, as the secondary RD, had to stay and still got paid; Dustin's taking photos for future Summer Programs brochures and I believe got paid solely in free Powell food, since he wasn't going to qualify for it this week otherwise.)
So in a move even more coincidental and wonderful than my getting to live in The Brick all summer, I also got to end my Alfred days in the same dorm in which I began them. Not, however, the same room: the first floor was cooler and necessitated less stair-climbing. But all the third-floor rooms are unlocked these days, so I went upstairs on Tuesday and peeked into 302. It looked so familiar, even after three years and a couple of months.
I'm really glad to've ended up with the chronicle of freshman year that I did, though I was, y'know, pretty much insane. I write the most when I have a lot to make sense of--and I also often write when I've got a lot of mental energy to burn and nothing else to do with it. Freshman year contained plenty of both, and it helped that I also had the time to do it. Summers and vacations tended to evoke the same.
This summer, however, has been comparatively quiet--only ten entries over the last two months, counting this one. Compare that to pretty much any other summer I've ever had on this blog. This has been the best summer in I don't even know how many years--and both my narration and stress have largely gone into e-mails, not blog entries. I hadn't expected that.
Maybe Binghamton will inspire a lot of text, too. Four years later and I still wonder some of the same things--most notably, what am I going to do with my life? I kept hoping it'd gradually become more obvious. So far it hasn't. So there'll be more study. More attempts at sense and patience. ...Two years feels like a long time to be there, but maybe by Christmas I'll be glad of the length.
Sometimes I think that I must not be able to handle much difficulty in life, if only because so many things fall into my lap, asà a secas. Alfred itself was like that, in a way. Spending this summer here was like that, too. And for all it saddens and unnerves me, I understand that Binghamton is a very coddling sort of transition from Alfred. I still have IV; I even know Carrie Moorhead already. I can still visit of a weekend, pretty much whenever I want. I'm doing the same sort of thing I've always done--reading books and writing about them--but more so.
Still, Alfredian days are essentially over. There're still so many things I've never done, which bothers me, as though it would even have been possible for me to do everything there is to do here. No sooner do I do something than I come up with other ideas; I still sometimes think about this place as though I'll be here forever.
-Laurel
So in a move even more coincidental and wonderful than my getting to live in The Brick all summer, I also got to end my Alfred days in the same dorm in which I began them. Not, however, the same room: the first floor was cooler and necessitated less stair-climbing. But all the third-floor rooms are unlocked these days, so I went upstairs on Tuesday and peeked into 302. It looked so familiar, even after three years and a couple of months.
I'm really glad to've ended up with the chronicle of freshman year that I did, though I was, y'know, pretty much insane. I write the most when I have a lot to make sense of--and I also often write when I've got a lot of mental energy to burn and nothing else to do with it. Freshman year contained plenty of both, and it helped that I also had the time to do it. Summers and vacations tended to evoke the same.
This summer, however, has been comparatively quiet--only ten entries over the last two months, counting this one. Compare that to pretty much any other summer I've ever had on this blog. This has been the best summer in I don't even know how many years--and both my narration and stress have largely gone into e-mails, not blog entries. I hadn't expected that.
Maybe Binghamton will inspire a lot of text, too. Four years later and I still wonder some of the same things--most notably, what am I going to do with my life? I kept hoping it'd gradually become more obvious. So far it hasn't. So there'll be more study. More attempts at sense and patience. ...Two years feels like a long time to be there, but maybe by Christmas I'll be glad of the length.
Sometimes I think that I must not be able to handle much difficulty in life, if only because so many things fall into my lap, asà a secas. Alfred itself was like that, in a way. Spending this summer here was like that, too. And for all it saddens and unnerves me, I understand that Binghamton is a very coddling sort of transition from Alfred. I still have IV; I even know Carrie Moorhead already. I can still visit of a weekend, pretty much whenever I want. I'm doing the same sort of thing I've always done--reading books and writing about them--but more so.
Still, Alfredian days are essentially over. There're still so many things I've never done, which bothers me, as though it would even have been possible for me to do everything there is to do here. No sooner do I do something than I come up with other ideas; I still sometimes think about this place as though I'll be here forever.
-Laurel