slow day....

Now Playing: "The Phantom of the Opera" soundtrack by Andrew Lloyd-Weber. Track 14, "Learn to be Lonely".

This morning I ate breakfast in my room: the Ls' doughy bread and orange spice tea. I wrote in my journal and wrote e-mails, studied archaeology, and studied RBL. Just as I was looking over the midterm exam from RBL, Tara knocked on my door and asked me if I wanted to go to lunch with her. We went downstairs to collect Alisha, and as the three of us were walking out the door, we bumped into Jenny, who joined us. After lunch, I spent the afternoon studying: first RBL, for an hour, then archaeology, for an hour. Then I slept for an hour-and-a-half, and then studied MBW for half-an-hour. At five-thirty, I walked downstairs to meetMatt, Sam, Asher, Daniel, Tara, Rachel, and Jenny to drive over to Bartlesville for supper at the house of the Ds, Jenny’s friends and members of the church the Ks go to, I think.

We finally left. I led for awhile because Jenny gave me directions, and Matt didn’t have directions, but once we were on the highway for the forty-five minute drive, Matt zoomed ahead. He tried to get me to race, by pulling alongside close, then zipping ahead, but I just plugged along steadily, despite the hoots and laughter of Jenny and Asher, who tried to goad me into racing. Jenny finally decided that we should go around the car, and everyone should list the characteristics of their ideal spouse. *cough*

We finally found the Ds' house: a little brown house, comfortable and plain. The Ds are an older couple—their children are grown, but they’re still working. Mr. D is tall and rather heavyset, with crew-cut grey hair and thick-rimmed glasses. He’s from Boston and his accent confused me occasionally. Mrs. D is shorter, slender, with blond hair and a pretty face. Everything about her was youthfully elegant. She’s from Mississippi, and spoke with a slight drawl. They welcomed us warmly. They have a huge dog, a Great Dane named Elsa. She’s cream-colored, and her head comes above my waist. When everyone went outside onto the back porch, Elsa galloped around like a horse, being very friendly and very excited. She could easily have bowled Tara or me over, so Mrs. D banished her indoors. The dog obediently stood in the laundry room, kept back only by a plastic baby gate leaning against the laundry room doorway. She could easily have knocked it over or leaped over it, but she just stood there, tail wagging slowly, watching us disappointedly.

Outside, Mr. D set up the grill and cooked the meat, while Asher, Tara, Mrs. D, Rachel, and Jenny played croquet on the lawn. Daniel, Sam, Matt, and I watched. Jenny and Mrs. D teased each other constantly: both were pretty competitive. Jenny only laughed at everyone, and won. I spotted a robin nesting in the little pear tree behind the back porch, and I pointed her out to Tara and Rachel. You could just see the robin’s black-and-white flecked head poking above the edge of the sturdy little nest, which was wedged carefully between two thick branches. I lay in the grass and listened to the hum of conversation. The sky above was aquamarine, vibrating behind the shimmer of smoke from the grill. Above the wooden privacy fence, I could see another row of houses behind the Ds’, and then nothing but an open meadow—harsh golden-brown grass, rippling young green on the trees, leaves catching saffron light like water on their palms as the sun set. When the meat had finished grilling, we gathered on the back porch, and Mr. D prayed, thanking God for “this day, which is a manifestation of You”, and for the food.

Everyone gathered around two tables on the back porch, and we ate our smoky meal with good fellowship. The conversation finally settled on movies, specifically thriller/horror movies. Mrs. D laughed about a time when she had just watched a horror movie with an incredibly spooky main character. Her husband had dressed up as the main character, lurking in the dark hallway, and had nearly frightened her to hysterics. “It was pretty funny,” he laughed as she told the story. “It’s funny now, but it wasn’t then!” she protested. I curled up in my chair, shivering in the cold south wind that was blowing over the porch. When everyone had finished eating, we cleared away the paper plates and cups, and went indoors. Mr. D brewed coffee and tea, while Mrs. D passed around a platter of soft cookies. Elsa eyed the proceedings from behind her baby gate. We stood or sat around the small dining room and kitchen, attracted like moths to the warm light. Matt and Jenny told funny stories about their crazy cats. Veterinarians told Matt's family that one of their cats needed to be put on antidepressants because she would spend all day staring out the window, terrified that she would be attacked. Jenny laughed about her psycho cat: “Yeah, if you’re standing and looking out the door, the cat will leap at you, dig its back claws into your knee, and bite you, to make you let it out,” Jenny laughed.

At about nine-thirty, Jenny said, “Well, sorry guys, but I need to do some studying when I get back. I think it’s time to go.” Mr. and Mrs. D gave us a hearty, friendly farewell. They invited us all to come back, and were deep in conversation with Matt about playing Risk the next time he visited as we walked out the door.

On the way to Tulsa, Jenny said, “I’m going to have to listen to some more peppy music. Do you mind?” “No,” I said, with a little sigh. We’d been listening to Loreena McKennitt on the way there, but I think I was the only one who enjoyed it. Daniel and Tara, sitting in the back seat, kept up a friendly, brother-sister conversation the whole way back to Tulsa, while Jenny surfed the radio, looking for a good station. She found country, and classical (“Ew!” Tara squealed from the back seat), and a Latino rap group (“Ugh!” I groaned from the front seat), and finally a Christian rock station, which she settled on. She sang along to the songs as the dark miles rolled by. I asked her questions about going home and about summer conference—we talked about cooking (she and her brother like to cook together) and catamarans.

I relaxed when I saw the familiar skyscrapers poking unexpectedly above the black hills, star-staircases against the blank sky. Trying to weave my way through the maze of highways, I took the wrong turn. So we ended up driving the “scenic” route through Tulsa, past factories, bars, and pawn shops. The car bumped and thudded over the rutted road. Again, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw lights—this time, the string of white lights that line the eastern boundary of campus along the sidewalk past the fraternity houses and the basketball gym.

Back in Lottie, Tara, Jenny, and I marched down to see Alisha. “Hi, Alisha! I’m going to go check my mail, then meet me in the study lounge, and we’ll study,” Jenny said brusquely. “She said she’d be really stressed tonight,” Alisha chuckled as she turned off her laptop to move it down to the study lounge. “How many pages do you have?” Tara asked, looking at the draft of Alisha’s twenty-page paper for her liberalism class. “Fourteen point one,” Alisha said, tallying the pages up on a scrap of paper. She and Tara discussed plans for shopping at resale stores. I finally went upstairs to bed, though the rest of them planned to study for another couple of hours (it was ten-thirty).

In my room, I saw the light flicking on the answering machine. To my delight, I found a message from Violin—it was just a pleasure to hear her voice. Then I checked my e-mail. Dr. T had sent me an e-mail concerning my revision of a poem I'd written for our extra credit assignment. He wrote, “You, my dear, need extra credit for a grade like a hole in the head...:-) but I must admit I did read it and I like it.” It made me smile. I must be such a stinker of a student to have! Always bothering my professors to read drafts and extra credits and such. I showered, read Luke, and went to bed.

dead days... really?

Now Playing: "The Book of Secrets" by Loreena McKennitt. Track 5, "The Highwayman".

Well, well, look at this.... I've actually been on here for a year-and-a-day. Yesterday was the year anniversary of this blog. But don't go back and read those posts, because I was still figuring out how it worked.

My thanks to those who suffered through that last post. I admit, it was dreadfully long. This one may be somewhat shorter and thus more manageable.

Today was the first dead day. No classes and not much happening on campus. I woke early and drove out to the Ls’ house to give Karis a lesson. Karis opened the front door with a smile. Everyone was still eating breakfast, except Karis. The house smelled warmly of freshly baked bread. “I just baked them,” Mrs. L said, pointing to racks of honey-brown loaves on the counter, “and I’d like to give you one when you leave.” Karis and I had a good lesson in the little cluttered schoolroom: meter, rhyme, and pun.

At ten o'clock, I met with Dr. A about my Honors paper. I found her in a cheerful mood. We laughed about interruptions: she told me that being a religion professor has its drawbacks because she’s constantly getting calls or e-mails from people who want to know things that they could just as easily find out by looking at the Bible. “I had a news reporter call me over Easter and ask me if the resurrection had really happened!” she laughed. “I told him to go look at the Bible.” We talked about my paper, straightening things out somewhat. She encouraged me in a couple of spots that I had been unsure about. When there was nothing else to say, and neither one of us could stretch the time any longer, I left. “Salve!” she murmured after me as I went down the narrow hall. I returned to my room with a bittersweet feeling.

For the rest of the morning, I worked on my Honors paper. Tara knocked on my door at about twelve-thirty. “Hi, Evelyn! Ready to watch a movie?” she asked. We went down to the Lottie lobby together to watch “Whisper of the Heart”, an Anime film that Matt had lent me and had recommended to both Tara and me. We curled up in the lobby on the floor in front of the big TV. The lobby was dim and empty, the tall windows only showing strips of cold, grey sky outside. Using the overstuffed footstool as a table, I sliced chunks off the warm, doughy loaf that the Ls had given me, spread them with butter and jam, and ate that as we watched. I shared the bread with Tara, too. The movie was sweet, if a little corny in places--about a girl who writes fairytales. The animation was impressive: some of the scenes of the sky were so detailed as to look real.

After the movie, I spent the afternoon trying to study, though I was so sleepy that my attempts weren’t very successful. In the evening, I walked over to Kendall Hall for a staged reading of “Everyman” by one of the other Honors sections, Dr. C’s section. The theatre they used was Theatre II, smaller than the main theatre and used mostly for classes. I stepped through a narrow entry area into the theatre itself, which was basically a big, black box. No windows, but a ceiling that shot up to a dusty roof. Props, cords, and chairs were tossed untidily in the corners. Red sheets covered a bank of mirrors across the room. I glanced about uneasily as I took my seat in one of the few rows of chairs that had been set up. There was no stage, but the center of the floor had been cleared and set with props for the play. Students from the Honors section, the actors, horsed around. As the play began, the seats around me filled up: most of the audience was late, including Rachel, who winked at me as she came in. The class performed “Everyman” in its entirety. Each actor wore a black T-shirt with the name of his or her character printed across the chest. The stage was set up with twelve stations, and at each station was an actor embodying some characteristic: Good Deeds, Wealth, Fellowship, Beauty, Strength, Knowledge, etc. Each actor had a prop to clue the audience as to his or her characteristic. Danielle, playing Five Wits, scribbled busily in a notebook, while the boy who played Wealth had on a big shiny belt buckle and strings of plastic Mardi Gras beads strung around his neck, and Fellowship drank constantly from a plastic tankard. A small girl sitting beside me giggled at the most religious parts and made fun of the actors. The actors themselves were rather irreverent: Whitney, a girl, played God. On a philosophical level, I found the good-works-will-save-you message disappointing (to put it mildly).

After the play ended,I spent the hour until RUF studying. During RUF, the group sung many hymns, with readings from Isaiah interspersed. After the time of worship, Mr. K asked the seniors to come up and give testimonies. Then Mr. K turned off the lights, Jason turned on his laptop, and we watched a slideshow of pictures from the past year set to various songs. (If you want to see a few pictures from the slideshow, go to Jenny S.’s Xanga.) I began to realize just what a blessing this semester has been, in some ways. After the slideshow, Mr. K asked his wife to pray for the seniors, and she did, solidly and faithfully mentioning each one of them. He closed, pronouncing the benediction on our bowed heads.

After RUF, I stood and talked with Syneva about our plans to go to the Philbrook. Alisha stopped by to tell us that she probably won’t be able to go (we were hoping to go together as a threesome) because she has two twenty-page papers due, and she spent most of the afternoon today on the phone trying to straighten out complications with airplane tickets: she and Tara are going to South Africa on a mission trip this summer, and somehow her tickets were messed up. Mandi came by to work out details for the barbecue/game night this Friday. Then she looked at me. “Hey, am I going to see you again?” I shook my head with a smile. “Well, I guess I’d better say good-bye then.” She hugged me. “You’d better hug her twice,” Syneva said snidely, watching us with an impish grin, “You know she’s going on an airplane, and you may never see her again. She might die.” “Oh, dear! Will I be invited to the funeral?” Mandi asked. “Yeah, sure. I’ll be there. Sort of. But I won’t be able to hug you,” I laughed.

After awhile, Syneva and I decided to leave. We walked to Lottie, where I went up to my room to grab Esther’s amaryllis plant, which had been donated by my mother and Brother2 for me to give her. Syneva came along to see my room. We scurried over to the apartment, bracing ourselves against the cold north wind that raced down the street. Syneva opened the door to the apartment, and we stepped into the warmth thankfully. The living room was dim with lamplight. Esther lay on the sofa, wrapped in blankets, her neck still in its brace. Flowers in vases stood everywhere—on the counter, on the TV table, on the dining table. “Smells like a greenhouse in here,” I commented, sniffing the polleny chlorophyll smell. I sat on a chair by the TV, while Syneva sprawled on the floor. The three of us carried on a good conversation, Syneva contributing snide jabs whenever there was an opportunity. Esther was quite pleased to see the amaryllis, though it’s only budding now, and eagerly requested that I ask my mother for directions about keeping it over the winter. Esther’s mother, sitting elegantly in an armchair by the sofa, said that one of Esther’s great-uncles used to keep a greenhouse full of amaryllises.

I told Esther that the neighbors across the balcony from the apartment were moving out. “Good!” she said. “Too bad there isn’t much time left to enjoy it.” “They were the noisiest people here,” Syneva explained, “their parties would spill out onto the balcony.” “And whenever you went over there,” Esther added, “it reeked of beer. I went over there a couple of times to ask them to be quiet, and they would quiet down, at least long enough for me to go to sleep.” I told them the story from our old house: When it was on the market, of course, there was a “For Sale” sign in the front yard. One night, when the house was dark, a group of students from one of the rental houses down the street decided to have a party. The party spilled over into our yard. M woke up in the middle of the night to discover two people smooching outside her bedroom window! Not best pleased with the situation, she marched outside in her nightgown, her hair all frizzled, brandishing a broom. All she had to do was turn on the porch light, and her fearsome appearance frightened off the intruders immediately. Esther laughed and laughed.

Syneva walked with me back to Lottie because she had to pick up her car from the parking lot. When I tried to take a shower, there was no hot water, and as a result, I lay in bed and shivered uncontrollably for an hour before I fell asleep.

It never rains but it pours--literally!

Warning: This post is a whopper. It should hold you guys over for awhile. :)

It's been quite an exciting day. I woke up grumpy this morning, not looking forward to having to spend two more weeks in school. But somehow, things conspired to make the afternoon and evening quite exciting....

We begin the saga with this afternoon at one-thirty, when I was innocently working on my Honors paper in my room. Glancing out the window, I noticed that the sky was starting to get dark and the wind was kicking up. The more time went on, the darker the sky became and the stronger the wind grew. So I decided to walk over to Chapman Hall for Honors class before the storm hit. Bundling my books into my knapsack, I started off. When I opened the door into the outside, the wind hit my face. My skirt kited around my knees. I was thankful, for once, for the warm, heavy load of books on my back, a good ballast against the wind.

I curled up in the entry area in Chapman with my books on a bench, but the storm outside distracted me. The three-story windows soared up, expanse of glass like a clear waterfall, showing the turmoil outside: clouds whirling overhead, foaming like waves, seething like live things. The elm and goldenrain trees outside Chapman kicked into a white froth. Leaves, plastic bags, debris flailing through the air, whipped high over the buildings. Power crackled from cloud to cloud. Occasionally, a petite Asian girl would poke her head out of the writing center and stare, worried, at the sky. People banged into the entry area, the glass doors slamming behind them. Some laughed, some exclaimed, some cursed. Two women came in, giggling and breathless. One of them called her husband “on the farm” to tell him to “cover the greenhouse”. Water streaked glasses and beaded damp skin. At two fifty, I walked upstairs, just ahead of Dr. A. Nicole entered, too. We were just getting settled down, marveling at the strength of the storm, when a sound like a gunnery in full fire splintered the silence. Rain, mixed with hail, battered the windows, hard barrage of ice and water. As though the sky were a big ship-of-the-line attacking a little sloop. Nicole and I pressed our faces to the glass. All over the building we could hear squeals of surprise and dismay. Every one of the huge plateglass windows was under attack: I wondered if they would all shatter, the storm having battered in our portals, leaving the building to sink under ice cold water and wind. Jessica and Lewis blustered in. “Ow, ow, ow!” Jessica was complaining, “See! Look! That’s from the hail!” she gestured to several red welts on her bare legs. “We don’t have storms like this in Kentucky!” she moaned. “I’m just wondering about my car,” Dr. A said, “While I was visiting my mother in Minnesota over the break, they had baseball-size hail that damaged my car. I just had it repaired. One of the other professors took my keys and said he’d put it into shelter, but I hope he was in time!” I wondered uncomfortably about my own car. Rachel entered, soaked to the skin, her hair dark and wet as though she’d just been washing it.

Dr. A finally managed to establish order, and class commenced. She wrapped up our survey of the Middle Ages by discussing other eras’ attitudes toward the Middle Ages. She also described to us the main characteristic of the Middle Ages: “If you run across any piece of art or literature that presumes a center, a focus point, then it’s medieval. If it presumes an orderly cosmos and a certain ‘fitness’ to things, then it’s medieval.” My mind leaped to the Calvinist doctrine of vocation, and C.S. Lewis’s theories about all human beings being made to glorify some specific aspect of God, either by beatitude or by judgment, for both these systems presume a “fitness”, an aptitude, to the world. Russ came in for the last fifteen minutes of class, just as Dr. A reached this climax. He, Nicole, and Rachel carried on the discussion about whether Christ’s physical body had to be physically handsome as a manifestation of His divinity. The rest of us listened. After class, Rachel and I walked outside into a fairly tranquil world. The wind still soughed intermittently through the trees, sprinkling thick drops, like silver seeds, on the sidewalk. But in the west the sky was a-dazzle with pale yellow. Rachel went to put on some dry clothes. I hurried to the parking lot to inspect my car, which was undamaged, then spent the afternoon working on the Honors paper.

As the afternoon progressed, the sky began to darken again. A huge, branched canopy of cloud blossomed overhead, as though a tall, dark tree were unfolding above the campus. Wind returned to stir the trees. I went running. The wind yanked my hair loose, as it had yanked leaves loose. My new shoes squelched through mud and slithered on drifts of fallen leaves, pressed like hands to the damp sidewalk. As I ran past Twin South, I passed Andrew, who greeted me courteously. Back in my room, I showered, then walked over to the cafeteria for supper. Andrew, Katie, and Crystal were sitting at the usual table together: the long table on the west side of the cafeteria. As I strolled up, Andrew said, “I saw Evelyn running today. It made me feel lazy.” “You are lazy,” Katie teased. She and Crystal insulted him for awhile. Jenny joined us, and Rachel. We sat and laughed and talked. Asher came, too. Asher asked if Rachel and I were going to the orchestra concert tonight: it’s at the PAC downtown. Asher called Kevin’s parents, and we managed to work it out, in the end, so that Kevin’s parents would take both Rachel and me. After supper, we parted: I returned to my room, where I tweaked my paper some more and yanked on a blue sweater over my lime green Systematic Theology Class T-shirt.

At seven o’clock, I skipped downstairs to meet Kevin’s parents on the southeast corner of Twin South. Rachel hurried up, while Asher, JAH [Jenny H.], Matt L., and Jason emerged from various locations. JAH was dressed in crisp black-and-white. “I felt like dressing up tonight,” she explained, flouncing her loose white skirt. We stood on the kerb for awhile, waiting. A couple of dudes in a rip-roaring green pickup truck howled by. “They’re going out to chase the storm,” JAH said noncommittally. Staring west, I saw that they indeed had a storm to chase: a line of angry blue clouds strung across the horizon. Already its vanguard had begun to ride over the university, and the main body of the force was swallowing up the skyscrapers downtown. A nervous RA from Twin Towers, in baggy pants and carrying an oversized flashlight, watched jumpily with us. The air was dead still, heavy. Everyone jumped then: the tornado sirens went off. Adrenaline licked through my body, lacing every vein. We scurried inside, while the eerie sirens screamed like aliens in the background. Inside Twin South, the RA strode up and down the halls, thudding on the doors with the butt of his flashlight. People crowded out of their rooms into the narrow hallway. We (Jason, Matt L., Rachel, JAH, and I) went down to the end of the west hallway, where we found James and Eleanor, together as usual. David and Spencer joined us later.

For awhile, people were pretty rowdy. We were on the boys’ hall, and the crowd was made up mostly of boys, who sat down the hall from us, shouting and guffawing, stirring about impatiently. We occupied the sliver of hall across from the room that James and Asher share. James let JAH, Rachel, and me inside. We poked our heads up to the window, and JAH gasped in awe. “Look, you guys!” The blank darkness that had enveloped downtown was surging toward us, though the air at our level was dead still. “That’s bad,” I said, “if it was raining or windy, then we’d be safe. But that’s bad.” The trees were still as becalmed ships. We crowded back into the noisy hallway. JAH called Kevin, urgently telling him to call his parents and tell them to get to shelter. Rachel and I followed JAH into another boy’s room, where someone showed us radar pictures: an angry red blot, like a brushfire, boiling toward us. We tried to settle down in the hall. JAH brought a box of food from James’s room, and she and Rachel munched goldfish and fig newtons. I whispered snide remarks in Rachel’s ear about asking to be saved from the zoo in Twin South. “I’d rather brave the tornado than this mob in here!” Rachel paraphrased with a chuckle. The boys were scattered up and down the hall, like pieces of their own messy belongings that were strewn about their rooms. A boy and his girlfriend were playing computer games on their laptops, side-by-side.

But us RUFers congregated together, around Jason and James and the guitar. I reminisced to Rachel and JAH, remembering all the funny stories I could about tornado alerts at home: how my father had to shake Brother1 awake one night when a tornado really was coming because Brother1 had slept through the sirens; how we dragged all our pets (guinea pig, rabbit, and cats) into my parents' closet to wait out the storm—how the cats had been terrified of the rabbit, and the rabbit terrified of the guinea pig (sharing the cat carrier with him), and the guinea pig had quietly munched his hay in the cat carrier, and how the cats had paced nervously until we penned them in my parents' bathroom. Jason sang dead love songs about cowboys, with a rakish grin (he knew he was being silly). Occasionally, he would interrupt himself to advise Matt L. about what chords to play next. Matt L., who’s very proficient at the guitar, strummed away imperturbably. Then he passed the guitar to James, and opened his Bible—for the rest of our forty-five minute imprisonment, he read studiously, an impassive smile on his face. Meanwhile, Jason, who’s always onstage, flipped out his umbrella in perfect timing to “Just A Spoonful of Sugar” from “Mary Poppins”: JAH, Rachel, and I sang along to the chorus. He sang a song from “Willy Wonka”, and JAH followed his voice. We were interrupted by the strict RD, who told us in no uncertain terms not to open the bedroom doors, to stay in the hall, and to be quiet and still if the power went out. After her announcement, the rowdiness resumed, storm surging back over its own eye. JAH sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”, her husky voice twining itself with a lovely, unexpected twang through the tune, while Jason sang bass. Jason, JAH, and Rachel sang rounds. Then Jason and JAH sang something about a lion coming out tonight. JAH’s voice ululated up through trilling African animal calls, while Jason burred away below her. I sat and scribbled prayers in my journal. Spencer grinned rakishly at me from behind a corner.

Finally, at seven forty-five, they announced that we could leave. “The storm will be back in about an hour-and-a-half. There’s another one coming up I-35. So you all can go out and get whatever you need to, but be ready to come back.” Jason, David, JAH, Matt L., JAH, and Asher decided that they were going to go to the concert, though JAH changed into jeans and a T-shirt. “I’m not getting caught in a tornado in this!” she said, waving a hand at her finery. Rachel decisively marched back to the Honors House. I hesitated: I wanted to go to the concert, to listen to the orchestra perform, but my mind lingered on my laptop and my unsaved paper sitting up in my room. So, wishing aloud that I had more courage, I hugged JAH good-bye and ran back to Lottie.

I spent the evening working on my paper, which is almost finished, except for the conclusion. It has a wonderful, rousing bit toward the end: God was gracious to give me some epiphanies today in the realm of Anglo-Saxon poetry. Between writing, I listened to NPR on my computer and watched out the window. Big storms were moving through Oklahoma City and Stillwater, so I sat and prayed, and wondered what was happening in Tulsa. At nine o’clock, I strolled down to the study lounge for the hall meeting. I curled up on the sofa to write in my journal. Tara bounced in, wearing blue plush pajama pants. “Hi, E--!” she cried, “I haven’t seen you all day!” We discussed plans for watching a movie tomorrow, and wagged our heads over the storm, as everyone else was doing. When most of the girls had arrived, Julie, our RA, came in and talked to us about proper tornado procedures and the process for checking out. We listened attentively: a rim of girls around the room, all eyes. Not a silence of mere respect: Julie had brought ice cream, which kept everyone quiet. J I slowly slurped my vanilla-and-chocolate until the meeting was over. Julie begged us to finish the ice cream, so Tara and I both helped ourselves to seconds.

I asked Tara if I could come down to her room to write in my journal. “Sure,” Tarasaid cheerily. I padded after her to the room down the hall, which she and Jenny share. She perched on her bed, and I sprawled on the floor, and we ate our ice cream flavored with companionable conversation. Outside, the storm had returned: lightning danced devilishly across the sky, like blue witch-fire. Then came thunder, low and ominous like beating drums, then louder, until I half expected to see pieces of the sky crumbling off. Rain spattered the windows, then fell harder and harder, until the window was covered by another window of rippling water. Rain blew in sheets across the parking lot outside, driven from the north. I settled down to write in my journal. The room was fairly quiet: hiss of rain on the window, growl of thunder, and the buzz of Jenny’s weather bug. The bug perches on Jenny’s shelf and chirps like a loud cricket whenever the weather is changing: it’s been singing a real solo tonight. Tara asked about how tornados form, and I tried to explain about hot and cold air and fronts and things. At ten o’clock, Tara left to study with Nicole, but she said that I could stay in her room as long as I wanted. Too lazy to move, I accepted her offer. I’m crouched on the floor like just another stack of books, amid flip-flops, knapsacks, socks, papers, and empty styrofoam ice cream bowls. The storm has quieted outside. I’m tired myself.

high time for a "real" post

Now Playing: Focus on the Family Radio Theatre, "The Voyage of the 'Dawn Treader'" by C.S. Lewis. Track 3, "On Board the 'Dawn Treader'".

Well, I'm sorry that I haven't posted on here in so long. But this week has gone fairly well. Three papers are done, with one to go, due at the end of finals week. Today I'm playing my flute jury (for which I'd appreciate prayer), and after that, there's finals.

Another piece of good news: Esther came back to Tulsa yesterday. She's in the apartment she's been living in this semester with Syneva and one of their other friends, Rachael.

Yesterday was a fairly normal day, but since it's been awhile, I guess I'll just tell you all about what happened then.

Classes are starting to draw to a close. In MBW today, Dr. F brought in two recordings: one of "Beowulf" read in Old English, and one of the same poem read in modern English by Seamus Heaney, an Irishman who recently made a famous translation of "Beowulf". She played excerpts from both readings for us, the Old English first. I shut my eyes and listened in delight to the hard, bright syllables, the sharp, warlike rhythm. I could catch some of the phrases. Then she played "Beowulf" in modern English. Heaney read mellowly, soothing, turning the battle poem into a lullaby. When the excerpts were over, Dr. F asked us what the differences were between the two. She asked, "Would you all like it if I put on the Anglo-Saxon reading for the rest of the class period?" She expected, and got, an enthusiastic "No!" from everyone--except me, of course, who sat and smouldered quietly at the back of the room. "You could fall asleep to Heaney's reading," someone said happily. I wrinkled my nose. I could've listened to the Anglo-Saxon indefinitely: harsh in its loveliness, like sunshine streaking through clouds, clashing on wet grass. I must say that Dr. F always gets the response she wants from the class. She may claim, and the students may boast, that they're thinking for themselves and being truthful and innovative, but they're all sitting smugly on the same bandwagon together.

In archaeology, Dr. O lectured more about the Maya, the last civilization we've studied this semester. Like Dr. F, Dr. O always draws in the most abrasive political criticism--he usually isn't openly angry about it, but he snidely mocks Christianity and Conservatives. Like Dr. F, who harps endlessly on the fact that Heaney, an Irishman, definitively translated the English "Beowulf". Dr. O is always wagging his head about overpopulation and the like, which seems ironic, considering that the population of the world could comfortably fit into the state of Texas! Either their conclusions are warped, or they make an enormous mountain out of a molehill. Both of them also adopt the confident position, "We used to think.... Now we know....", as though modern man is now omniscient. Darwinism at work: progress is assumed. *cough* "I've seen it all in an egg. In Narnia, we call that going bad."

After class, I practiced my flute. As I swabbed out my flute in my room, A.C. knocked on my door. I was pleased and surprised: she moved out of the dorm last week, and I didn't think I'd see her again. The two of us ate lunch with Tara and Alisha. I spent the afternoon working on my Honors paper, typing up a study guide for archaeology, and sleeping. The Honors paper has been enjoyable to write: poking through dusty old books about Anglo-Saxon poetry, reading scraps on their history and looking at glossy pictures of intricate jewelry and crumbling walls. One book I found is a wonderful anthology of the different genres of Anglo-Saxon literature, with a nice, concise history of the people in the front, and photographs of artifacts and architecture sprinkled throughout.

There were very few people in the cafeteria during supper this evening. Most of the other RUFers, including Rachel, went to spend the weekend at a vacation house on Grand Lake. A family in the church that most of the RUFers go to owns the vacation house, and occasionally invites everyone down there for a weekend. After supper, I walked around campus, studied, then went to a performance of a student string quartet in Tyrrell Hall. Syneva was playing cello. They performed Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" string quartet, the quartet in D minor. They played very well: an intense, delightful performance of a very difficult piece of music. Syneva frowned angrily at the low, growly bits, or raised her eyebrows at the plucking, and grinned at the first violinist as each movement began. I heard someone say afterward, "That cellist is crazy!", which made me smile.

After the concert, there was a reception in the hallway outside the performance hall. Mrs. C, Syneva's mother, brought a small chocolate fountain, and fruit to dip in the melted chocolate. One of the other girls brought cookies, and the second violinist's mother, who's Greek, made baklava. I stood and chatted with Mrs. C and Mandi. Mrs. C watched in consternation as people accidentally dribbled melted chocolate in her new white brocade tablecloth. A plump woman served fluffy pink punch, and everyone crowded in the hall and talked. I ate a piece of the baklava--gooey and crunchy, and so honey-sweet as to be almost bitter.

I ran back to my dorm, for the sheer joy of it, and showered, and tried to go to sleep. Of course, the girl who lives next door to me, as usual, had friends over, and they were (also as usual) watching a noisy movie. So it took a long while before I finally drifted off.

update

Now Playing: "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" soundtrack by Howard Shore. Track 6, "At the Sign of the Prancing Pony".

From what I've heard, Esther is doing better. Her injuries were mostly to the head, but the doctors say that she will recover. She's quite conscious, though on heavy pain medications, but she's able to talk and to remember. She's physically well enough to stand up and walk about, but because of the nature of her injuries, she gets dizzy easily. Hopefully, she'll be back in Tulsa by this weekend (she's been at the hospital in Oklahoma City these past days). Thursday evening, one of the other RUF girls is driving down to see Esther, and Rachel and I are planning to go with her.

Thank you all for your prayers.

a prayer request

I just learned that Esther, one of the seniors in RUF, was in a bad car accident last night. The doctors say that she's in "serious but stable" condition. Please pray for her, and for wisdom for the doctors, and for comfort for her family.

briefly....

First, two notes of thanks: One to SwanElf, who made a batch of delicious ginger cookies two weekends ago. They kept me awake through several rounds of studying for the Major British Writers paper, and kept me company last Saturday afternoon as I read through a book (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy--don't ask why, and don't read it unless you want to skim a lot and laugh mildly). And one to Marigold, Princess, and Daisy, who made a batch of bloom buns on Saturday. Marigold was thoughtful enough to send three back with me, one of which I ate for breakfast this morning--delicious cinnamon-and-sugar, though sticky, washed down with a cup of orange spice tea.

Second, a link. Go to www.photobucket.com . Type in "Elfellyn" for the username, and "psalm84" for the password, and you'll have a link to some of the pictures from last Friday. Most of you won't know any of the people, but I did write out a few captions, and at least you'll get a sense of what the goings-on looked like.

yesterday afternoon/evening (an edited journal entry)

Note: My apologies to all of you who go into Information Oveload Mode. :) This post is rather long (that being an understatement). But I still value your comments, even if it's only "hi" to let me know that you stopped by.

This afternoon I spent a little time studying before I collected my belongings and hurried outside to meet Jenny H. and Kathryn at four-fifteen. We were going to drive to Jenna’s house and make supper for ourselves, Jenna, Kevin, Crystal, Asher, and Andrew. As I went outside, I realized that the sky was totally dark. Rain had begun to spit down, in cold flakes. When I turned the corner of the building and stepped out onto the street, the wind hit me so that I almost fell over backwards. It swirled around the corner of the building, turning in on itself so that my body was yanked in all directions at once. I forced my way across the street to my car, and hastily took shelter, shivering, in the driver’s seat. Jenny H. joined me, and we both sat, shivering and waiting for Kathryn. Jenny H. outlined to us her plans for the evening’s cooking, and we listened like obedient servants of an elite chef. It began to rain properly as we drove to Jenna’s house. I tried to wipe my windshield, but it was so dirty from the dust storm last night that the windshield blades created a morass through which I could hardly see. At Jenna’s house, Jeremy, her husband, was cooking pancakes, which he shared with Anna while the four of us started to cook. Jenna put a country CD onto the CD player—a drawling woman, her voice rollicking over the clanking piano. Jenna put on the rice to steam, while I ripped up cabbage leaves, and Kathryn sliced carrots. I sat at the little high table in the kitchen, across from Jeremy, with Anna between us. Through forkfuls of pancake, Anna would turn to stare at me. The wet cabbage leaves reeked. Rice sizzled on the stove as Jenna sliced fat from half-a-dozen chicken breasts. Jenny H. needed the blender to puree onions, garlic, carrots, cabbage, and chicken, and this sent Jenna and Jeremy on a hunt to find the parts of the blender, which were scattered through the cabinet. Jenny H. made do with what they could find. She dumped the sliced onions into a bowl, gasping at the stench. The two of us jammed cabbage leaves into the blender and whirled them into slivers. Then the carrots, and, finally, the chicken. Jeremy brought in a big bowl full of rain-wet cilantro from the garden outside.

Jenna brewed tea for us: lemon for Jenny H., apple for Kathryn, raspberry for me. Mine was deep red in an enormous blue ceramic mug. It had an earthy taste to it—a blurry, pulpy edge, like the taste of grass. Jenna left to drive Jeremy to the airport: he’s going on a business trip to Chicago this weekend. Kathryn, Jenny H., and I pressed on. Jenny H. stirred up the sliced ingredients in a large bowl. Then she filled a smaller bowl with two or three beaten eggs. She spread out the spring roll “papers”, thin, flat sheets made mostly of flour and water, and she showed us how to roll a small amount of the filling into each sheet, folding and sealing the roll, like an envelope, with egg whites. We talked about our class schedules for next semester. The house was gently warm—the satisfying crackling of the gas stove, the patter of rain on the small windows.

Then Andrew and Asher arrived. They took Jenna’s guitars and walked around, strumming them. Then they put rock music onto Jenna’s stereo and sat in the dining room, listening to it. Kathryn and I, perched on either side of the small kitchen table, busily rolled spring rolls. We made fifty of them, stacking them on a plate by the stove. Our fingers grew sticky from the egg and the raw chicken. Jenny H., in turn, heated water and oil in the smaller of the two woks. The wok began to pop and click, like beads swinging together. It fizzed as Jenny H. popped half-a-dozen spring rolls into the water. They bobbed and jostled against each other as she turned them, rolling them over with a pair of wooden chopsticks. She stacked the golden-brown spring rolls on another plate. She sliced one in half and let Kathryn and me “taste-test” it. It was still hot, so it scorched my tongue, but it was also very good—heavy, warm, delicious. Jenna came back, with Anna, her one-year-old daughter. The boys laughed with delight over Anna’s antics. She scooted across the floor on her seat, alternately grinning and being coy. Jenna began to fry the rice, pouring half the white rice into the other wok with oil. The deep mounds of sticky rice sizzled softly. I chopped ham, and slid the cubes into the rice. Andrew added soy sauce. Jenny H. and Jenna were both worried because the rice wasn’t turning brown, showing that it had fried properly. Andrew suggested that they put all of it in a separate bowl, then return it, bit by bit, to the wok, with more oil. He put half-a-cup of rice into the walk with a tablespoon of oil, and proceeded to fry it: but this experiment disgusted Jenny H., who teased him endlessly about it. Jenna, Andrew, and Asher each ate a forkful and pronounced it delicious, but Jenny H. would have none of it. “That much oil is gross!” she squealed. We waited for Crystal and Kevin to arrive. They called Andrew to say that they were bringing David, too—but the three of them never showed up. Jenna showed Asher how to make egg drop soup on the stove. When it was done, she dished it into deep bowls, which Kathryn set on the table in the dining room.

We sat down at six forty-five to a delicious meal. Jenna prayed, and we ate: piping hot spring rolls with gooey peanut sauce; sweet, sticky rice; egg drop soup with swirls of egg and rings of green onion floating in the chicken broth. The Asian spices burst in my mouth—peanut, pepper, onion, soy. Everyone complimented the meal, and we ate with contentment and good fellowship. Jenny H., bubbling with energy, finished her food in a hurry and began grating carrots to fix vegetarian spring rolls to take to Katie, who’d wanted to come but couldn’t. I poked my head into the kitchen to see what she was doing, and was rather ashamed by the mess we’d made. As Jenny H. told Katie later, “We used up just about every dish in the house!” The two woks sat like fat cats on the stove, beside the cauldron of egg drop soup and the empty, grimy rice container. One of the woks had burned, and there was a nasty black scorched spot on the bronze surface. In the sink, ceramic mugs, bowls, and plates were stacked, with a wooden spoon and fragments of carrot and cabbage. The colander I’d used for the cabbage straddled the edge of the sink. The little table still held the remains of the spring roll operation: empty packets of wraps and the neglected bowl of egg.

However, the meal had to be cut short: Syneva’s junior cello recital was at seven-thirty. So Andrew, Asher, Jenny H., Kathryn, and I piled into our cars, with apologies for leaving Jenna with all the dirty dishes, and hurried off to the recital. As we left the car in the parking lot, the cold wind cut into our arms. Kathryn, Jenny H., and I scurried down the sidewalk toward Tyrrell. Jenny H. was carrying a bottle of chili sauce and a Tupperware container of spring rolls for Syneva, who’d also wanted to come. Its sides misted in the cold, and the warm scent of the Asian spices seeped into the foyer of Tyrrell as we stepped indoors. The three of us sat in a long row with Jenny, Tara, Rachel, Alisha, etc. Alisha had brought her visitors: her sister and one of her friends from home. I sat and laughed at Jenny, who scribbled in my journal before the concert started. Syneva played quite well. She performed Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations, Bach’s third cello suite, and a short, modern piece called “Prayer”. As we clapped after the concert, Alisha brought her a bouquet of flowers. When they hugged, the applause swelled, and Syneva smiled. Onstage, she is so serene as to be impassive.

After the recital was over, everyone just sat for awhile. Jenny had almost fallen asleep. I crept out, feeling exhausted. Syneva and I chatted for awhile, surrounded by other RUF people who also joined the conversation. Then Syneva graciously excused herself and went off to talk to her other guests. Rachel hurried off to retrieve her jacket and her book from the Honors House: she, Jenny, and Tara wanted to come back to Jenna’s house with Jenny H. and me. Kathryn had to stay on campus to study. Jenna had invited us to come over after the recital for ice cream and a movie. Jenny H. was deep in conversation (and a piece of moist carrot cake) with Syneva’s mother, so we left her to come later with Jenny, Tara, and Ange. Rachel and I drove to Jenna’s house ourselves. Rain flecked the windshield. I asked Rachel how her day had gone. “Oh, it was wonderful!” she said enthusiastically. She told me that Calculus class had been wonderful (at which I smiled, knowing how I would feel in Calculus class), and that she’d been working at the Battle of the Bands with Tara, and that it had actually been fun. The Battle of the Bands is a TU event at which various local bands perform for prizes. Students come out to listen, eat food, have fun. At Jenna’s house while we were eating supper, I could hear strains of rock music drifting through the open window, and I guessed that it was the Battle of the Bands. Syneva told me after her recital that they had been setting it up on the library lawn, but that Syneva’s cello teacher had been very worried by this (Tyrrell is on the lawn), so she’d persuaded the dean to get the concert moved to behind ACAC (which is a good distance away, on the other side of the library).

At Jenna’s house, we found Jenna spooning applesauce into Anna’s open mouth and listening to country music. She had washed all the dishes, and the kitchen was spotless. We sat with her at the dining room table, chatting and laughing at Anna’s antics. I pulled hideous faces at Anna, but that made her smile. She clapped her hands at Rachel, who grinned and clapped back. She loved looking at Rachel’s flushed, happy face. Shortly after we arrived, Jenny, Tara, Ange, and Jenny H. came, shaking the rain from their clothes. “We brought a boy with us!” Jenny announced with a big laugh, and David trailed in, smiling sheepishly. When Anna was finished with her meal, Jenny took her out of her high chair and played with her. David played with Anna too, pushing a pillow gently into her face. She pushed it back at him, smiling and blinking happily. Jenny and I served ourselves peanut butter cup ice cream from the refrigerator while Tara brewed tea in a red-bellied pot on the stove. I licked the creamy ice cream, crunching the peanut butter and chocolate, savoring the thick peanut butter on my tongue. Jenny borrowed Jenna’s computer and showed David and Jenny H. pictures of her siblings on their spring break. Jenny’s siblings look like herself—they’re a handsome bunch, as wildly exuberant as she is.

Eventually, Jenna made Jenny pipe down, and we all settled in the living room to watch the movie Jenny had brought: “In Good Company”. Syneva and her mother arrived and joined us. Rachel sequestered herself in a corner by the fire place, reading a book about economics. The movie was sad: about the struggles of people trying to keep their jobs in the corporate world, trying to be honest and moral. It was a parody in some ways. One of the main characters was so focused on climbing the corporate ladder that he got himself divorced, and after his divorce he threw himself into his work. “If I ever get that way, somebody shoot me,” Jenny groaned. The language was awfully profane, and there.

After the movie, we all left. I drove Rachel to the Honors House—on the way, we talked about the emptiness of life without Christ, eating the orange peel without the fruit. I staggered up to my room, rain freckling my face. I locked the door and checked my e-mail. My mother had sent me a message about the doings at home: the basketball banquet, the CY movie night. I read it, and tears welled up in my eyes. “I want to go home,” I sobbed softly. Oh, I was tired. I undressed. My heart fluttered and my stomach contracted at the thought of all the work I had to do. Kathryn had told me that Dr. T has assigned two papers, not just the leaf paper, due on Tuesday in the First Seminar class (Kathryn is in that class with Rachel and me). That makes five papers, plus the archaeology project, which makes six. I was exhausted, driven to the point of despair by the work. “He gives His loved ones sleep,” I remembered. So I went to bed, but the girl next door was hosting a bunch of friends. They were watching a movie, laughing, talking. I woke up once and rolled over grumpily to look at the clock: the red numbers glowed one fifty-four. I could still hear the music pounding through the wall. It sounded as though they were dancing. I yanked the blankets over my head and nestled down, worming my way back to sleep.

a quick update

Now Playing: "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" soundtrack by Howard Shore. Track 15, "The Hornburg".

Some of you may be wondering (though probably most of you are not) whatever happened to the poems I submitted to the university magazine last semester. I was wondering, too. Today the editor sent out a list of things accepted, and of the works that won the magazine's competition. Here are the results (as far as they concern this author):

"Purgatorio" won third place. Why? I'll never know. That has got to be one of the weirdest, most overblown poems I've ever written.

"Fire" and "Daddy O's" were also accepted for publication.

It's happened again.

Now Playing: "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" soundtrack by Howard Shore. Track 2, "Concerning Hobbits".

First of all, thanks to my aunt who recieved a scatterbrained prank call Saturday night. The call was intended for someone else (namely, the zoo from home, which was down at my aunt's house visiting). My aunt was gracious about the whole matter, but I felt pretty foolish afterwards.

And now, my disclaimer: It's happened again. Thanks to the fact that three or four professors apparently got together and schemed before the semester started, I have three research papers due by the end of this month (not to mention the other papers/projects that are due for other classes). Yes, you all have heard far too much about them by now. But it is because of these papers that I'm hanging another "Gone Paper-Writing" sign on this blog.

In short: I will certainly post on here again, but probably not for awhile.