not hungry anymore

Now Playing: Johann Sebastian Bach, "The Great Flute Concertos" (played by Jean-Pierre Rampal", Track 10, "Concerto for Flute and Orchestra in C Major BWV 1055r, Allegro."

October 11, 2007. This morning Emmaline actually woke up to her alarm clock and was up before I was. I dressed, did my devotions, etc. We ate breakfast together, chatting with Rachel while we did the dishes. The house was absolutely dead and dark except for the three of us talking in the kitchen. Emmaline left for her class at nine o’clock and I worked on this entry. Then I went to Late Medieval Literature at ten o'clock. In both the lecture and the tutorial a lot of talk about gender, and some talk about how Chaucer wants morality to be vague instead of absolute (!). When I got back to Renwick after class, I found three packages waiting for me—one of sheet music from my mother, one from the Wests, and one from IFSA.

I went running in the PEC. I listened to the next-to-last lecture on The Rare Jewel. Then I walked back to Renwick and showered, which felt delicious. After I showered, I sat down briefly to check e-mail—and lo and behold, Loganwas on Skype. So we had a proper chat for about twenty minutes. At about two-thirty I went downstairs to the kitchen, where Emmaline was fixing lunch for the two of us. A delicious lunch, warm and heartening: pea-and-ham soup (rejected by Deborah and Rachel from yesterday’s lunch for being too “weird”; Emmaline and I laughed about how people in Ireland never try anything new or weird) and ham-and-mayonnaise sandwiches. Emmaline had cheese on hers and I had fresh red bell pepper on mine. We washed the dishes and went upstairs.

It was a long, sleepy afternoon. I walked over to Ulster Bank to use the ATM, then to the Student Union shop to buy laundry detergent and milk. I put a load of laundry in, then read The Pardoner’s Tale and The Prioresse’s Tale for Late Medieval Lit., and worked on my paper, scribbling endless notes in the margins of The Reeve’s Prologue. I listened to Mark O’Connor’s fiddle concerto using headphones because Emmaline was trying to study statistics, sprawled on her bed. She eventually went downstairs to see if she could find Rachel to help her, then upstairs to work on planning games for the Glenmanus RPC kids’ club, Kidorama, with Catherine. The afternoon faded through shades of grey into a dull autumn evening.

At about six forty-five, I picked myself up and walked down Elmwood Avenue and then along University Street to Villa Italia for the final study abroad dinner. Villa Italia was yet another fancy shmancy Italian restaurant. The same sort of food as the other ones we’d been to, though this restaurant was more consciously “Italian” and had grapes and vines hanging everywhere and faux Roman statues. We all sat at a long table toward the back. There were ten of us all told.There were, as usual, long rather dull pauses in the conversation at one end of the table, in which the people at the other end were laughing at some rough joke. The food was good, at any rate: for me, fried stuffed mushrooms, followed by chicken wrapped in pastry and surrounded by a deep orange tomato-and-basil sauce, and finished with a tall “sundae”, though it was a milkshake by American standards—vanilla ice cream in a tall thin glass swirled with caramel and nuts. Other people had duck, or steak, or salmon, etc. Fiona made sure that everyone had all their paperwork filled out and got those of us who are going to Dublin to pay our deposits, and then she let us go.

I walked briskly back to Renwick, glad to have that over. Downstairs the common room was full of people: the CU Maths small group, led by Rachel, in which Emmaline was participating. After having eaten so much I had a lot of energy, so I was hungry for something to do. I went down to get my laundry, and spent a little while chatting with Phil and Catherine. I took my laundry upstairs, folded it, put it away, and sat down idly at my computer. I decided to try calling people via Skype. So I rang up Sarah’s cellphone, but of course she wasn’t there—probably working. Then I called Elizabeth’s cellphone, and, delight of delights, she answered. “Hello? Who’s this?” “Hi. This is E--.” “E--!! Hi!” I started to laugh, of course, with gladness to hear her voice. We ended up talking for nearly two hours, according to the chat log on Skype. It was a lovely conversation.

In the middle of the conversation, someone knocked on my door. I asked ECF to hold on for a minute, and hurried to the door to find Claire there. She came in for a minute, briefly, to tell me (in response to a text message I’d sent) that I was more than welcome to come for the weekend. Apparently I have Calvin's approval, which is unusual since Claire gets teased by him about most of her friends. We said good-night, and then I went back to my conversation with Elizabeth.

Towards the end of our talk, Peter, Logan, and P all got online, and Peter started up a group chat, so I was a bit distracted, but I wasn't involved much, especially as Elizabeth and I said our good-byes. We said good-night, about eleven forty-five here. I chatted with the boys for awhile, then called Logan over the phone. But it was good to hear his voice…. We only talked briefly because he had family friends coming over for supper. Then Peter called me, and the two of us tried to set up a conference call with Philip, but my sound was becoming more and more distorted, and when Philip finally did get through, his voice was distorted and garbled. It was midnight anyway, so I said good-bye to them both and signed off.

All this time I could hear voices and laughter downstairs, and I felt a little bit strange for shutting myself up in my room, though I knew that it would only be awkward for me to go down with the house full of strangers. But some of the noise had died down, and when I did go downstairs, I found Rachel, Emmaline, Catherine, and Rosemary standing around in the stairwell, chatting. I was trembling all over from the excitement of the evening, and bubbling with laughter. We sat and joked around for awhile, then moved into the kitchen. Rachel told a ridiculous story about one of the guys in her class who has long “ginger” hair and long purple fingernails and a beard…! Rosemary and Emmaline munched biscuits, and we sat around talking for awhile. At about twelve-thirty, I went upstairs to bed. Emmaline and I went to sleep at about the same time, though after the lights were out I lay in my bed praying for awhile, giving thanks.