Today, wonderfully, was full of other people reminding me of God's awesomeness--and that Christianity, far from being one person's guilt-and-doubt-ridden, isolated attempt to find something true, is togetherness itself: the warm embrace of a million family members, love you don't find anywhere else.
Things just started out well today anyway. I agree with Shelly: while The Message is not my Biblical version of choice, being a little, oh, paraphrasal rather than exact, it's good for times when you sort of need to be reminded of how exciting God and His truths are. Eugene Peterson does have a way with words, even if I feel like sometimes the individual voices of all the Biblical writers get lost in the process. Was using the online version; cross-referenced a couple of passages between that and NLT, and, I don't know, it was just good. And exciting.
...I'd known from her e-mail that Erica had rescued my Bible from 8 Park after I "lost" it (turns out it'd gotten wedged between our bunks and the wall...that's what I get for trying to perch it on top of our bedside window, where the curtain rods made a small shelflike space...my bunk was the top one, so it was easy to put things there), but I hadn't been expecting it to arrive in the mail today. When I got it, I laughed in delighted recognition at the so-Erica touches on and in the envelope. There were flowers drawn under my address, and on the back, where the adhesive was, she'd written, ...the answers to all of life's problems lie herein... With my Bible was the following note: Sorry to leave you unarmed for so long but here's your sword so you can get back to sword practicing. Enjoy! And then she'd signed it. I loved it.
...I ended up going to Wal-Mart tonight in an abortive attempt to buy a new battery for my cell phone; after four years of occasional use (I don't keep the thing on a lot), it'd finally died (apparently the average battery only lasts two years, so, given the abuse I put it through at times, four years is pretty good) and could not be recharged. Well, Wal-Mart doesn't sell cell phone batteries, so that was no good, but I did buy iTunes credit so I could get some music. The cassette-ripping's gone nowhere, and I haven't had any new albums to listen to for a while, and graduation money was paying for it, so there you have it.
Well, this arranged time in such a way that, as I was coming out of Wal-Mart, I heard my name called and looked over to see Joe's high-school friend Kenny (he's come to Alfred a few times; we've all hung out with him), who'd come with his mom. He'd just gotten back from a church conference in Massachusetts, which had involved camping and canoeing and lots of Bible study and worship, and he was super-excited about it. So, while we stood there in the parking lot and I made what I hoped were understanding, encouraging "uh-huh!" noises, Kenny proceeded to deliver more words strung together than I have ever heard out of him in a series, and perhaps more than all his previous words combined. To be honest, at the time I think I was more surprised by his lexical outpouring than anything else, but when I got home I got to read a summary of how well things had gone, for he'd given it to Tom over their Facebook wall-to-wall (in response to Tom's having left him a very nice public note that was also good just to read), and I stumbled onto it essentially by accident.
Also on Facebook: Joe's note about engineering and building relationships and God redeeming all things. I have such inspiring friends!
And much of my iTunes credit went to Phil Joel music, which is also God-centered amazingness, as it turns out. His newest stuff (new to me, though it's over a year old), "The Deliberate People Album," is really good. (No real surprise from someone associated with Newsboys for so long, hee!)
So, well, I feel pretty showered upon with goodness and love and thrill. And with that, I'm going to bed and getting up lateish tomorrow morning for dentistness; and, hopefully, to keep enjoying God being amazing.
-Laurel
5.27.2007
Slang fantasticness!
Back in high school, as many of you will remember, I used to love British and Australian slang (still love the English kind especially, but don't remember most of it). Well, thanks to an Alton Brown short I caught, I've now had a look at something just about as entertaining: diner slang.
If I were Chelly Ninos (I only last semester learned that that's how she spells her name), I would totally yell this stuff across the Jet. It would be pretty much amazing.
-Laurel
If I were Chelly Ninos (I only last semester learned that that's how she spells her name), I would totally yell this stuff across the Jet. It would be pretty much amazing.
-Laurel
5.25.2007
July 21
So I was marking my calendar with the dates I'm summer-RAing, and I noticed that I'd already marked July 21st (though I'm not working then) with an exclamation point. Nothing else, just that. And now I don't remember what it was for. That might be when my parents' thirtieth anniversary is, and I can see why I would have marked that, but I'll have to double-check, since I thought it was a different date.
In the meantime, then, do any readers out there know what I'm maybe supposed to be doing that Saturday?
-Laurel
In the meantime, then, do any readers out there know what I'm maybe supposed to be doing that Saturday?
-Laurel
5.23.2007
Over the top, as Charles stuff is wont to be, but I appreciate the sentiment all the same.
"...But know this: You can cut me off from the civilized world. You can incarcerate me with two moronic cellmates. You can torture me with your thrice-daily swill. But you cannot break the spirit of a Winchester. My voice shall be heard from this wilderness, and I shall be delivered from this fetid and festering sewer."
-Charles, "Fade Out, Fade In," M*A*S*H
My brother is home and has been fun. We've been playing his Wii.
I made Moroccan chicken and lentils tonight. When I made it in Alfred, it wasn't bad, but things went even better this time. Have also made some chocolate-chip cookies, though I'm starting to wish I hadn't eaten a good chunk of batter along with them.
-Laurel
-Charles, "Fade Out, Fade In," M*A*S*H
My brother is home and has been fun. We've been playing his Wii.
I made Moroccan chicken and lentils tonight. When I made it in Alfred, it wasn't bad, but things went even better this time. Have also made some chocolate-chip cookies, though I'm starting to wish I hadn't eaten a good chunk of batter along with them.
-Laurel
More from home
The final thing I forgot to tell about Senior Week (I hope): my experiment in fish-keeping has come to a close. Rather than drag my two remaining fish home, then to Alfred, then have to keep an eye on them during Summer RAing, I donated them to the fishtank at the campus counseling center. I spoke for a while with the super-nice desk lady, whose name I think was Kim, who was very excited to see them (the fish), and who said I could come back to visit them anytime. :-D Aww.
So, in fantastic news, it turns out my mom's not actually diabetic. Supposedly for the past year she's been borderline-to-actual, but the new doctor here realized that that actually wasn't the case: she was on medication for something, and it messed hardcore with her blood sugar. The medicine is gone, and everything's back to normal. A wonder that that hadn't occurred to her previous doctor, though. Sort of a dangerous consequence of ignorance. Not dangerous, though, to him.
I've been playing around with Audacity, ripping old cassette tapes to mp3. Erik has pointed out that I could just, you know, download the tracks elsewhere, since we own them legally. True; I wonder, then, why I'm still doing it this way, especially since it took me almost two hours just to get the settings halfway decent. Do you know how many listen-throughs of the Beatles' "Taxman" that is? (And I'm still running into a few things, but I finally moved on to "Eleanor Rigby" and "Love You To." I think Revolver might be the best Beatles album ever. But I don't want those to be fightin' words, so let me add that I say that without a ton of conviction on the point.)
Things are nice here, but I shall be back in Alfred in a little over a week. Hurrah!
-Laurel
So, in fantastic news, it turns out my mom's not actually diabetic. Supposedly for the past year she's been borderline-to-actual, but the new doctor here realized that that actually wasn't the case: she was on medication for something, and it messed hardcore with her blood sugar. The medicine is gone, and everything's back to normal. A wonder that that hadn't occurred to her previous doctor, though. Sort of a dangerous consequence of ignorance. Not dangerous, though, to him.
I've been playing around with Audacity, ripping old cassette tapes to mp3. Erik has pointed out that I could just, you know, download the tracks elsewhere, since we own them legally. True; I wonder, then, why I'm still doing it this way, especially since it took me almost two hours just to get the settings halfway decent. Do you know how many listen-throughs of the Beatles' "Taxman" that is? (And I'm still running into a few things, but I finally moved on to "Eleanor Rigby" and "Love You To." I think Revolver might be the best Beatles album ever. But I don't want those to be fightin' words, so let me add that I say that without a ton of conviction on the point.)
Things are nice here, but I shall be back in Alfred in a little over a week. Hurrah!
-Laurel
5.21.2007
yiiiiiiikes
Well, it only took eight days for it to finally hit me that I've graduated. I don't like the idea much. Thinking about my (continued) lack of a church here (long story, sort of, though not an interesting one), the upcoming summer and all it holds, the fact that the descriptions for grad classes in English at Binghamton fill me with a certain amount of dread, et cetera, I'm really pretty scared, to be honest. This is life?
Still another thing I forgot to mention over the past two entries: I also spent about 45 minutes, Wednesday of Senior Week, having my first-ever phone interview. I'd applied for an assistantship with Binghamton's orientation and FYE programs. The lady who runs them has a voice surprisingly (but reassuringly) like that of Liz Lawton, who runs FYE at Alfred. I did okay, but not great, and they ended up hiring someone else.
Also, I am still frustrated by Onondaga County's mediocre library system (as compared to Monroe County's, anyway), but one upside of free interlibrary loan (which Monroe did not offer) is that soon I will see, for the first time, Guys and Dolls (my mom and I decided some time ago that I should, and she should see it again with me), despite all the video stores around here having closed. (I would develop a vendetta against Netflix for their part in this, but the way video stores are going, we'll probably all be subscribing to Netflix in another three years, so why not save myself the later hypocrisy?)
Okay, going to bed. Like, actually.
Still another thing I forgot to mention over the past two entries: I also spent about 45 minutes, Wednesday of Senior Week, having my first-ever phone interview. I'd applied for an assistantship with Binghamton's orientation and FYE programs. The lady who runs them has a voice surprisingly (but reassuringly) like that of Liz Lawton, who runs FYE at Alfred. I did okay, but not great, and they ended up hiring someone else.
Also, I am still frustrated by Onondaga County's mediocre library system (as compared to Monroe County's, anyway), but one upside of free interlibrary loan (which Monroe did not offer) is that soon I will see, for the first time, Guys and Dolls (my mom and I decided some time ago that I should, and she should see it again with me), despite all the video stores around here having closed. (I would develop a vendetta against Netflix for their part in this, but the way video stores are going, we'll probably all be subscribing to Netflix in another three years, so why not save myself the later hypocrisy?)
Okay, going to bed. Like, actually.
5.16.2007
Addition to the Previous
I forgot to mention that I did see someone completely unexpected just after graduation: Mr. Herman. He was one of my fifth-grade teachers (that grade stands out as perhaps the best of all of them, K-12; I loved all three of the teachers I had that year); he essentially ran the accelerated-students program, SAIL ("Students Actively Involved in Learning," which suddenly strikes me, sitting here, as rather euphemistic, since let's hope every student is "actively" involved in learning...they must have been trying to avoid terms that made us sound smarter than we necessarily were). He used to call me "La Petite," I think because Mrs. Melnyk, one of my other teachers, called my brother "Le Petit" (my mom volunteered for the school at that time, so she'd be around on, I think, Friday afternoons, pick up my brother from his second-grade class, then come for me...she and Mrs. Melnyk would talk, which was cool). They struck me as odd nicknames--we were short, but not that short--but the point of the thing was probably that it was in French, anyway (if you know me in person, you'll soon realize why). I didn't like it much at the time, though I didn't really want to say so, but it's funnier now.
So anyway, all of a sudden we practically ran into each other. I had a surprised moment of recognition, Mr. Herman cried, "La Petite!", I cried, "Hi!", and I think we hugged. He was there to see, as it turns out, his partner's daughter's graduation (he was quite shruggy about this, apparently assuming we would all have figured it out since the fifth grade), but had seen my name in the commencement program and guessed it was me, and then had decided he was right when I crossed the stage. I met, too, his stepdaughter (I hope that's the right word, but no one ever said), with whom I'd attended school for four years, but whose acquaintence I'd never made (more surprising than you'd expect; this is, after all, Alfred). She seems nice. I had, however, met her mother (or at least I think she's her mother, unless she's Mr. Herman's sister, which would make her a sort of aunt; I don't remember now), who works for the Career Development Center on campus. She said hello to me, too, and chatted briefly with my mom.
I know that's a slightly disorganized splash of text; regardless, I saw Mr. Herman at graduation, and it was cool, a sort of connection of my best elementary-school days to my amazing college ones.
-Laurel
So anyway, all of a sudden we practically ran into each other. I had a surprised moment of recognition, Mr. Herman cried, "La Petite!", I cried, "Hi!", and I think we hugged. He was there to see, as it turns out, his partner's daughter's graduation (he was quite shruggy about this, apparently assuming we would all have figured it out since the fifth grade), but had seen my name in the commencement program and guessed it was me, and then had decided he was right when I crossed the stage. I met, too, his stepdaughter (I hope that's the right word, but no one ever said), with whom I'd attended school for four years, but whose acquaintence I'd never made (more surprising than you'd expect; this is, after all, Alfred). She seems nice. I had, however, met her mother (or at least I think she's her mother, unless she's Mr. Herman's sister, which would make her a sort of aunt; I don't remember now), who works for the Career Development Center on campus. She said hello to me, too, and chatted briefly with my mom.
I know that's a slightly disorganized splash of text; regardless, I saw Mr. Herman at graduation, and it was cool, a sort of connection of my best elementary-school days to my amazing college ones.
-Laurel
1000th Post (well, at least by revised count)
I've written several posts before that I've later deleted, on the grounds that they were too something--angry, bitter, personal, boring--but by current Blogger count, this makes my thousandth post. So I figure that I might as well write about Senior Week and graduation.
Monday of Senior Week hardly counts as Senior Week at all: it was part of Finals Week, for some bizarre reason, so all manner of people were still taking tests and handing in projects. I was no exception: I'd stayed up much of the night doing a take-home final, a project writeup, and a late assignment for Health Psychology. All were due at 10 AM; I handed them in around 8:15, then went to the Jet with Emily for breakfast. I had perhaps the most delicious McJet of my entire college career, and that's saying something.
A good thing that that McJet and glass of milk were so scrumptious and satisfying: they would be my only real sustenance for the next about-eight hours. The rest of that day was spent finishing the thesis bibliography and revisions, printing everything off, then trying like heck to get everything signed. This took far longer than I expected, so long that Herrick was closed by the time I got Dr. Mayberry's signature, my final one. Technically, this meant that I had missed my deadline for getting the paperwork in to Deb Ohara (and this was not the original due date or even the first extension, but the second extension), so I e-mailed her and explained that Herrick had closed, but I would get everything in as soon as I could the next day.
Then, though my sleep-deprivation was nearing the danger zone, I decided that, what the heck, I'd go to Rochester anyway. Lily Jo and I had planned, some time before, to go shopping, on the theory that I actually had almost no suitable warm-weather clothes (no shorts; one unsuitable pair of capri pants; and a series of fading t-shirts, most of them with small holes in the same seam where the right sleeve is sewn into the rest of the shirt), and on the theory that she wanted to get some skirts and stuff. So we grabbed some Combos and caffeine on the way out of Alfred and, well, went to Rochester.
The problem with this plan was twofold: one, we didn't leave until six o'clock, which meant we didn't get into Henrietta until about seven-twenty. Two, at eight o'clock we wanted to get food, and I wanted, if possible, to see my brother. We called him. He'd just had dinner himself, but said he would meet us at Buffalo Wild Wings, which was right across from the plaza, anyway, where 'Jo and I were.
I didn't realize quite how slow BWW is even on a Monday night, which made short work of our expectations to get a significant amount of shopping done, but I didn't care: it was really great to see the bro. Despite having eaten, as mentioned, he downed chicken wings and soda right along with 'Jo and me, and was truly talkative, going on about his classes this quarter, his planned summer classes, the campus apartment in which he'll be spending the next few months, et cetera.
After dinner was over with, 'Jo and I only got to one other store before everything closed. Net total purchase on my end: one pair of capri pants and one shirt. Still, that wasn't bad for a short amount of time--and anyway, I'd wanted to be particularly careful about what I got. Besides the fact that I like the idea of clothes-shopping much better than the actual process, the sermon in chapel the day before had criticized quite a few aspects of American Christianity, one of them being our lack of concern at the uneven distribution of world resources--30% of the population using up 80% of the stuff, or whatever the statistic is. Fair enough, and under that thinking, unnecessary clothes-shopping is not really something to be proud of, faded t-shirts (at least they're wearable) notwithstanding. Yet the fact remained that I didn't really have summer clothes per se, so after mulling that one over, I decided that the best I could do was to make sure I really liked whatever I did get, and to try to get only things I really could use. I genuinely like the capri pants and the shirt. I still have a few things to get, but those'll come.
Anyway, we went back to Alfred not too long after dinner, whereupon I went over to Bartlett and spent a long time with Tom and Joe, just hanging out. It was a really good time.
Tuesday was fairly uneventful. I did hand in my thesis and get my medallion; that was the big thing. Other than that, mainly I remember eating at the Jet and going to bed really early. Not much else to say.
Wednesday was fantastic, my favorite day all week, but not especially so until late afternoon, when Erica decided that she and Chris and I should go swimming in Bev and Harold's pond. Bev and Harold--I must have mentioned them before, but can't think of when I would've done so--are InterVarsity staff workers. They run a small farm, selling hay and keeping cows, and they have a big pond in which people swim. We three were the first ones in it this year; usually their grandchildren get that privilege, but it'd been a hot and humid day, and Erica had asked, and they had assented, though they warned us that it'd be freezing in there.
We reached the pond, and with a certain assumption of impending doom, Erica launched herself off the diving board in a do-it-before-you-chicken-out cannonball, and I followed close behind. But we were wrong: after the first shock (and my realization that I was still wearing my watch; I got out to put it with my sandals, then got back in), it actually felt way warmer than we'd expected, and soon we and Chris were swimming out to the little floating platform nearish the pond's center, there to lurch around its edges, trying to throw the others off-balance and make them fall into the water. Chris, once captain of his high school's swim team, did a sort of lap from one end of the pond to the other. He and Erica later threw me into the water, though not with much force, as we all noted with some disappointment. It was, oh, a wonderful time. And oh gosh how lovely Bev and Harold's land is, with the hills curving down and green everywhere, and cows and contentment, and the sun just starting to set, and the light glinting off the water. And just Erica, Chris, and me, such an unexpectedly-nice trio (why didn't we do more things together this year, I wonder? So busy we were).
We finally got out of the water and, drying off in what was still pretty good heat, went to the barn and let the calves suck our fingers, tickling us as our hands were covered in sticky bovine slobber. (Well, Erica did first, and finally persuaded me to. Chris would have none of that, and set about trying to make friends with the cat, who suddenly turned petulant and swatted him.)
After a brief chat with Bev, Harold, and one of the grandchildren (one of Roger's daughters, whose name I have, unfortunately, forgotten), we went back to the house, whereupon, after a brief chat with Chris and Tim (who'd randomly come over to deliver a couple of things) outside (we came up with a Magna Cum Laude dance, since Chris and I were both to graduate as such, and Tim already had), I dried my hair and got into dry clothes. In just about half an hour, I was due at Sandy and Roger's for the InterVarsity senior dessert (the funny part about this is that they live next door to Bev and Harold...but hey, it's a short drive). I hadn't had dinner, so I gratefully accepted Kenny Moss's offer of some spaghetti; he's mainly one of John's friends (though the rest of us like him fine), but through a communicational gap, he'd ended up using our kitchen that night to cook dinner for a small crowd, not realizing that none of the actual Honors House residents would be home at the time. So I ended up having some when I came back, then went up to the dessert. (Tom, being a grad student, was lucky enough to attend two senior desserts in as many years, having been to last year's as an actual senior. He walked from Bartlett to Honors House and rode with me.)
The dessert was lovely, not just because the food was lovely (though it was: tiramisu, shortcakes with both strawberry and raspberry sauce, and I think some third option that I don't even remember), but because of the two hours, after everyone else had left, when Tim Norman, Amy, and I simply sat and talked to Sandy and Roger, mostly listening to Sandy regale us with funny stores. It was so nice, so cozy, so familiar. Again, such a gorgeous place in which they live, such a gorgeous family.
An aside on that experience: I don't share the Twins' feeling of being old simply because I'm past my teenage years, but tonight I realized that I am perhaps showing one sign of age, haha: some of the sensations I desire most are not new ones, but old ones. What I want out of friendship, to be most honest, is a recreation of the simultaneous excitement and contentment, the airy inexplicable heart-warmth that was being in Zinni's basement with her and Ananda and Daffodil, midway through my eighth-grade year. That's become, perhaps against wisdom, my symbol of ideal friendship, and most of the close encounters I have with friends get measured against it. And I love the amazing content of C.S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain, which I finished for the first time today, but I loved just as much the fact that it feels like a C.S. Lewis book, that I got the same sort of grand wide-eyed wonder out of it as I did back in high school reading, say, Four Loves (since I can't compare it to the flooring incredibleness of my first few read-throughs of Screwtape Letters or Mere Christianity, but it was still really good)--a sensation I'd missed in the midst of trying to simply fathom books like Letters to Malcolm.
On Thursday, Tom and I went out to Lyons: he'd scored a second-round job interview at their school district and needed a ride, and I was up for a trip. It was a very riding-with-Tom sort of trip, with us making small talk and him insisting (though subtly, kindly) that the music stay well within the Celtic/gospel/country/acapella genres. I enjoyed it, and on the way home, when he'd fallen asleep and I could technically have played any music I pleased, I was so content with the setting sun; the long, lightly-trafficked stretch of 390 South; and the knowledge that he'd finally scored a teaching position that I played Chris Rice and City on a Hill anyway, enjoying the soft friendliness of the acoustic guitar (I do, it is true, love acoustic guitar).
Friday was cleaning and packing, hardcore, since I hadn't done nearly as much of it earlier in the week as I'd intended. The parents came; we went to the West with Lily Jo's family. I cleaned and packed late into the night and got up early the next morning for graduation.
Graduation went well, though not in a way that's at all interesting to describe. I smiled, and I believe genuinely, when I walked across the stage. I didn't trip, and my cap didn't fall off as I walked. I sang with Chamber Singers, and it went pretty well (though we pitched the alma mater in a different again--but not as drastically as at Honors Convocation; I could actually find the harmony this time). Afterward, I got pictures with John and the twins and my family and then went to the reception for a bit. I talked to Tom and to Otto, which was fun. I talked to Dr. Strong, which was nice enough, though I miss last semester, when we talked about other things besides just my upcoming graduate career (this semester, that essentially has not been the case). I talked to Vicky, which, as usual, was genuinely pleasant. I said hello to John's dad, who said something very kind to me. I met Abby's parents and talked to Laura and Lily-K and Egon, which was cool.
Eventually 'Jo and I went back to Honors House, threw a last few things in our cars, checked out, then went to join the rest of our family at lunch (they'd said we could be a little late, and we were) at Sonora's, the Mexican place in Bath where we went with people just before 'Jo went on Study Abroad. That was fun. After that I went home. My brother came home that night to drop some stuff off, but Mom and I didn't get to see much of him: he and Dad went off to see Spiderman 3, which they didn't end up liking much, and they didn't get back until we were going to bed, and he left to go back to school the next morning (it's not too long a drive from Rochester to Syracuse, and he had a friend, a guy who'll be his roommate this summer, to pick up along the way, since that boy'd also gone home for the weekend). Still, it was nice.
Sunday was Mother's Day, so for dinner I made Mom linguine with shrimp scampi, since Mom likes shrimp dishes, and Kristin had sent me the recipe, telling me it was really good. She was right: it's really good. I used a little more lemon juice than it called for, and even threw a bit of sugar into it, but it's probably the zest that does it as much as anything. Wow. Mom and I were big fans. Dad liked it pretty well, too.
Since then, I've been reading books and writing thank-you notes to relatives who sent graduation cards and stuff. More on all of that another time, maybe, but right now it's about one in the morning; I'm going to bed.
-Laurel
Monday of Senior Week hardly counts as Senior Week at all: it was part of Finals Week, for some bizarre reason, so all manner of people were still taking tests and handing in projects. I was no exception: I'd stayed up much of the night doing a take-home final, a project writeup, and a late assignment for Health Psychology. All were due at 10 AM; I handed them in around 8:15, then went to the Jet with Emily for breakfast. I had perhaps the most delicious McJet of my entire college career, and that's saying something.
A good thing that that McJet and glass of milk were so scrumptious and satisfying: they would be my only real sustenance for the next about-eight hours. The rest of that day was spent finishing the thesis bibliography and revisions, printing everything off, then trying like heck to get everything signed. This took far longer than I expected, so long that Herrick was closed by the time I got Dr. Mayberry's signature, my final one. Technically, this meant that I had missed my deadline for getting the paperwork in to Deb Ohara (and this was not the original due date or even the first extension, but the second extension), so I e-mailed her and explained that Herrick had closed, but I would get everything in as soon as I could the next day.
Then, though my sleep-deprivation was nearing the danger zone, I decided that, what the heck, I'd go to Rochester anyway. Lily Jo and I had planned, some time before, to go shopping, on the theory that I actually had almost no suitable warm-weather clothes (no shorts; one unsuitable pair of capri pants; and a series of fading t-shirts, most of them with small holes in the same seam where the right sleeve is sewn into the rest of the shirt), and on the theory that she wanted to get some skirts and stuff. So we grabbed some Combos and caffeine on the way out of Alfred and, well, went to Rochester.
The problem with this plan was twofold: one, we didn't leave until six o'clock, which meant we didn't get into Henrietta until about seven-twenty. Two, at eight o'clock we wanted to get food, and I wanted, if possible, to see my brother. We called him. He'd just had dinner himself, but said he would meet us at Buffalo Wild Wings, which was right across from the plaza, anyway, where 'Jo and I were.
I didn't realize quite how slow BWW is even on a Monday night, which made short work of our expectations to get a significant amount of shopping done, but I didn't care: it was really great to see the bro. Despite having eaten, as mentioned, he downed chicken wings and soda right along with 'Jo and me, and was truly talkative, going on about his classes this quarter, his planned summer classes, the campus apartment in which he'll be spending the next few months, et cetera.
After dinner was over with, 'Jo and I only got to one other store before everything closed. Net total purchase on my end: one pair of capri pants and one shirt. Still, that wasn't bad for a short amount of time--and anyway, I'd wanted to be particularly careful about what I got. Besides the fact that I like the idea of clothes-shopping much better than the actual process, the sermon in chapel the day before had criticized quite a few aspects of American Christianity, one of them being our lack of concern at the uneven distribution of world resources--30% of the population using up 80% of the stuff, or whatever the statistic is. Fair enough, and under that thinking, unnecessary clothes-shopping is not really something to be proud of, faded t-shirts (at least they're wearable) notwithstanding. Yet the fact remained that I didn't really have summer clothes per se, so after mulling that one over, I decided that the best I could do was to make sure I really liked whatever I did get, and to try to get only things I really could use. I genuinely like the capri pants and the shirt. I still have a few things to get, but those'll come.
Anyway, we went back to Alfred not too long after dinner, whereupon I went over to Bartlett and spent a long time with Tom and Joe, just hanging out. It was a really good time.
Tuesday was fairly uneventful. I did hand in my thesis and get my medallion; that was the big thing. Other than that, mainly I remember eating at the Jet and going to bed really early. Not much else to say.
Wednesday was fantastic, my favorite day all week, but not especially so until late afternoon, when Erica decided that she and Chris and I should go swimming in Bev and Harold's pond. Bev and Harold--I must have mentioned them before, but can't think of when I would've done so--are InterVarsity staff workers. They run a small farm, selling hay and keeping cows, and they have a big pond in which people swim. We three were the first ones in it this year; usually their grandchildren get that privilege, but it'd been a hot and humid day, and Erica had asked, and they had assented, though they warned us that it'd be freezing in there.
We reached the pond, and with a certain assumption of impending doom, Erica launched herself off the diving board in a do-it-before-you-chicken-out cannonball, and I followed close behind. But we were wrong: after the first shock (and my realization that I was still wearing my watch; I got out to put it with my sandals, then got back in), it actually felt way warmer than we'd expected, and soon we and Chris were swimming out to the little floating platform nearish the pond's center, there to lurch around its edges, trying to throw the others off-balance and make them fall into the water. Chris, once captain of his high school's swim team, did a sort of lap from one end of the pond to the other. He and Erica later threw me into the water, though not with much force, as we all noted with some disappointment. It was, oh, a wonderful time. And oh gosh how lovely Bev and Harold's land is, with the hills curving down and green everywhere, and cows and contentment, and the sun just starting to set, and the light glinting off the water. And just Erica, Chris, and me, such an unexpectedly-nice trio (why didn't we do more things together this year, I wonder? So busy we were).
We finally got out of the water and, drying off in what was still pretty good heat, went to the barn and let the calves suck our fingers, tickling us as our hands were covered in sticky bovine slobber. (Well, Erica did first, and finally persuaded me to. Chris would have none of that, and set about trying to make friends with the cat, who suddenly turned petulant and swatted him.)
After a brief chat with Bev, Harold, and one of the grandchildren (one of Roger's daughters, whose name I have, unfortunately, forgotten), we went back to the house, whereupon, after a brief chat with Chris and Tim (who'd randomly come over to deliver a couple of things) outside (we came up with a Magna Cum Laude dance, since Chris and I were both to graduate as such, and Tim already had), I dried my hair and got into dry clothes. In just about half an hour, I was due at Sandy and Roger's for the InterVarsity senior dessert (the funny part about this is that they live next door to Bev and Harold...but hey, it's a short drive). I hadn't had dinner, so I gratefully accepted Kenny Moss's offer of some spaghetti; he's mainly one of John's friends (though the rest of us like him fine), but through a communicational gap, he'd ended up using our kitchen that night to cook dinner for a small crowd, not realizing that none of the actual Honors House residents would be home at the time. So I ended up having some when I came back, then went up to the dessert. (Tom, being a grad student, was lucky enough to attend two senior desserts in as many years, having been to last year's as an actual senior. He walked from Bartlett to Honors House and rode with me.)
The dessert was lovely, not just because the food was lovely (though it was: tiramisu, shortcakes with both strawberry and raspberry sauce, and I think some third option that I don't even remember), but because of the two hours, after everyone else had left, when Tim Norman, Amy, and I simply sat and talked to Sandy and Roger, mostly listening to Sandy regale us with funny stores. It was so nice, so cozy, so familiar. Again, such a gorgeous place in which they live, such a gorgeous family.
An aside on that experience: I don't share the Twins' feeling of being old simply because I'm past my teenage years, but tonight I realized that I am perhaps showing one sign of age, haha: some of the sensations I desire most are not new ones, but old ones. What I want out of friendship, to be most honest, is a recreation of the simultaneous excitement and contentment, the airy inexplicable heart-warmth that was being in Zinni's basement with her and Ananda and Daffodil, midway through my eighth-grade year. That's become, perhaps against wisdom, my symbol of ideal friendship, and most of the close encounters I have with friends get measured against it. And I love the amazing content of C.S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain, which I finished for the first time today, but I loved just as much the fact that it feels like a C.S. Lewis book, that I got the same sort of grand wide-eyed wonder out of it as I did back in high school reading, say, Four Loves (since I can't compare it to the flooring incredibleness of my first few read-throughs of Screwtape Letters or Mere Christianity, but it was still really good)--a sensation I'd missed in the midst of trying to simply fathom books like Letters to Malcolm.
On Thursday, Tom and I went out to Lyons: he'd scored a second-round job interview at their school district and needed a ride, and I was up for a trip. It was a very riding-with-Tom sort of trip, with us making small talk and him insisting (though subtly, kindly) that the music stay well within the Celtic/gospel/country/acapella genres. I enjoyed it, and on the way home, when he'd fallen asleep and I could technically have played any music I pleased, I was so content with the setting sun; the long, lightly-trafficked stretch of 390 South; and the knowledge that he'd finally scored a teaching position that I played Chris Rice and City on a Hill anyway, enjoying the soft friendliness of the acoustic guitar (I do, it is true, love acoustic guitar).
Friday was cleaning and packing, hardcore, since I hadn't done nearly as much of it earlier in the week as I'd intended. The parents came; we went to the West with Lily Jo's family. I cleaned and packed late into the night and got up early the next morning for graduation.
Graduation went well, though not in a way that's at all interesting to describe. I smiled, and I believe genuinely, when I walked across the stage. I didn't trip, and my cap didn't fall off as I walked. I sang with Chamber Singers, and it went pretty well (though we pitched the alma mater in a different again--but not as drastically as at Honors Convocation; I could actually find the harmony this time). Afterward, I got pictures with John and the twins and my family and then went to the reception for a bit. I talked to Tom and to Otto, which was fun. I talked to Dr. Strong, which was nice enough, though I miss last semester, when we talked about other things besides just my upcoming graduate career (this semester, that essentially has not been the case). I talked to Vicky, which, as usual, was genuinely pleasant. I said hello to John's dad, who said something very kind to me. I met Abby's parents and talked to Laura and Lily-K and Egon, which was cool.
Eventually 'Jo and I went back to Honors House, threw a last few things in our cars, checked out, then went to join the rest of our family at lunch (they'd said we could be a little late, and we were) at Sonora's, the Mexican place in Bath where we went with people just before 'Jo went on Study Abroad. That was fun. After that I went home. My brother came home that night to drop some stuff off, but Mom and I didn't get to see much of him: he and Dad went off to see Spiderman 3, which they didn't end up liking much, and they didn't get back until we were going to bed, and he left to go back to school the next morning (it's not too long a drive from Rochester to Syracuse, and he had a friend, a guy who'll be his roommate this summer, to pick up along the way, since that boy'd also gone home for the weekend). Still, it was nice.
Sunday was Mother's Day, so for dinner I made Mom linguine with shrimp scampi, since Mom likes shrimp dishes, and Kristin had sent me the recipe, telling me it was really good. She was right: it's really good. I used a little more lemon juice than it called for, and even threw a bit of sugar into it, but it's probably the zest that does it as much as anything. Wow. Mom and I were big fans. Dad liked it pretty well, too.
Since then, I've been reading books and writing thank-you notes to relatives who sent graduation cards and stuff. More on all of that another time, maybe, but right now it's about one in the morning; I'm going to bed.
-Laurel
5.09.2007
-contentment-
Luxury is: a sunny Senior Week morning, a good book, and reheated cinnamon rolls (courtesy of Jamie Lain, who for some reason frosted them green), all in the same place.
Also: on my way to Powell and Seidlin two-ish hours ago (small errand), I passed by Herrick. A guy was doing work just below the roof, blasting a radio, and singing along to it, incredibly loudly and off-key. It was wonderful. I wonder if he heard me burst out laughing.
-Laurel
Also: on my way to Powell and Seidlin two-ish hours ago (small errand), I passed by Herrick. A guy was doing work just below the roof, blasting a radio, and singing along to it, incredibly loudly and off-key. It was wonderful. I wonder if he heard me burst out laughing.
-Laurel
5.05.2007
Sonnet 30, Shakespeare
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
It never looks exactly like this when I experience something that calls for this sonnet. But tonight was not unlike: Tom and I had a much-needed in-depth conversation. I went over to Bartlett (our roommates were both out of town, but, for one thing, the guys' room was actually cleaner than Erica's and mine!), and we started with some general musings on the passage of time and the differences between freshman and senior year, then got down to business and essentially just unloaded on each other about a lot of things. I hope he feels better some; I know I do. It couldn't solve my immediate problems, all of which are connected to the work that's due Monday (in that sense, the short-term problems have probably been exacerbated, for I'll probably end up having to nap tomorrow through part of my project time), but I remember again that he is much wiser about some things than I ever give him credit for until we actually talk about them, and I was glad for what he said, even in the cases where it was just that he'd been running into the same problems. ...And, too, many of our worries were really about what we're afraid of screwing up, not what we actually have, especially in that graduation is coming for both of us (his second one, haha, 'cause of the grad program).
And it seemed so private at the time that it seems almost wrong to talk about it now--except that, while it wouldn't be helpful to say what we discussed, it does seem worth recording, we talked about important things, and it felt like putting Blistex on a chapped and cracking lip. For so it did. It hurt a little, but you could feel it getting better.
-Laurel
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
It never looks exactly like this when I experience something that calls for this sonnet. But tonight was not unlike: Tom and I had a much-needed in-depth conversation. I went over to Bartlett (our roommates were both out of town, but, for one thing, the guys' room was actually cleaner than Erica's and mine!), and we started with some general musings on the passage of time and the differences between freshman and senior year, then got down to business and essentially just unloaded on each other about a lot of things. I hope he feels better some; I know I do. It couldn't solve my immediate problems, all of which are connected to the work that's due Monday (in that sense, the short-term problems have probably been exacerbated, for I'll probably end up having to nap tomorrow through part of my project time), but I remember again that he is much wiser about some things than I ever give him credit for until we actually talk about them, and I was glad for what he said, even in the cases where it was just that he'd been running into the same problems. ...And, too, many of our worries were really about what we're afraid of screwing up, not what we actually have, especially in that graduation is coming for both of us (his second one, haha, 'cause of the grad program).
And it seemed so private at the time that it seems almost wrong to talk about it now--except that, while it wouldn't be helpful to say what we discussed, it does seem worth recording, we talked about important things, and it felt like putting Blistex on a chapped and cracking lip. For so it did. It hurt a little, but you could feel it getting better.
-Laurel