isn't reading week supposed to be for reading?

Now Playing: Brahms, Piano Concerto No. 2, Track 1, "Allegro Non Troppo."

November 6, 2007.

My intentions to get up at a decent hour this morning were good, but they didn't last very long. That might have had something to do with the fact that I was up till one-thirty the night before, but we won't talk about that....

Anyway, the positively indecent hour of ten o'clock found me sitting on a chair in the bay window in my room, drinking some of the hot peach tea Syneva sent me, eating some of Emmaline's mother's very molasses-y banana bread, and laughing while Rachel tried to use my laptop to look up information for her sister, who was trying to get to an interview that morning with a company about which she knew almost nothing. Emmaline's French classes have reading week this week, so Emmaline came back at about ten o'clock, having been to her nine o'clock Math lecture.

After Rachel left, I took an hour or so to answer some e-mails and then went running in the PEC. The walk through the gardens was lovely as always. Half of the rose garden has been cut back in preparation for winter, the cuttings piled in a big brown heap to one side, the bushes looking strangely dwarfed in the sunshine. The trees that were bright colors only last week have begun to look bare, but there are still plenty of trees in the gardens that are fully green. While I ran, I listened to one of my father's Sabbath school lectures about communion. I'd never realized before just how alien the idea of eating Christ's body and blood is. Almost too vivid an image, though it forces one to realize just how dependent we are on Christ and just how much we really do participate in His life.

Back at Renwick, I showered, and then Emmaline went downstairs to eat lunch together. I tried to make myself a ham-and-mayonnaise sandwich, but the ham had gone off, so it was peanut butter and raspberry jam (they don't have grape jelly here!) instead. I spent the afternoon writing e-mails, addressing some letters, etc. Emmaline ended up going grocery shopping this week. I had been planning to do it myself, but since I've done it for the past couple of weeks she offered to do it today.

It was already beginning to be dark by four o'clock, when Emmaline and I, after having stowed away the groceries, walked down to the Starbucks at the corner to meet Mr. Atkinson for coffee. Neither Emmaline nor I know him very well, but he knows our parents, and had offered to take us out. We met him standing on the sidewalk above the open area outside Starbucks: a friendly man with a hooked nose, very black hair, and wearing a dapper suit. He gave us both fatherly handshakes, and we went into the restaurant. After we ordered, we sat at a table in a corner, and he asked us questions about our studies, our families, etc. In university he majored in math, French, and music, so he could sympathize with Emmaline. He asked me about what Philip, Laura, and Stephen are doing, and showed me a picture of our family taken back in the fall of 2005 when he visited. I glanced at it and chuckled, "We look very different now."

We spent a pleasant forty-five minutes or so chatting in the warm cafe. I had a big mug of hot chocolate with whipped cream and caramel, which was almost too rich. Mr. Atkinson had to be on the road by four forty-five to continue his driving round the country and speaking, so we said good-bye to him and then went back to Renwick.

I had Irish class at five-fifteen. The girl who teaches these classes is also a student at Queen's, a short, plump girl with very red cheeks, tiny eyes, and an apparently endless supply of patience for our stumbling pronunciation and constant interruptions to ask grammatical questions. Today we learned about how to describe family and friends, and she gave us packets of papers with reading exercises, which we did in class. That really helped. I had been feeling frustrated with the class, but when we actually sat down with a short, simple paragraph of reading, I was surprised by how much I was able to understand. She had us write short paragraphs to describe our own friends, which was, of course, more difficult than reading someone else's paragraph, but she praised our pronunciation, which was reassuring.

Class ended at seven o'clock. I walked back to Renwick as briskly as I could. The night was chilly and dark. In the kitchen, I found Emmaline and Catherine washing dishes. Tonight was Catherine's night to cook, but Daphne had cooked for all four of us. My supper was being kept warm in the oven, the last slice of shepherd's pie and the leftover corn and peas. I sat at the table with Andy M., who was also eating his supper, and slowly ate the warm, hearty food. Emmaline, Catherine, Andy M., and I chatted. Andy M. is in a choir and brought out his music to show Emmaline and me. Christmas music by Poulenc and Vaughan-Williams and Palestrina--beautiful, beautiful stuff. After I finished eating, I joined Emmaline on her quest to demolish the two mountains of dishes in the sinks and the foothills of dishes on the counter in between. (*cough*) We were mostly successful and had the "hills brought low" in about half-an-hour. I made myself a cup of tea and went upstairs with Emmaline to study.

We spent the rest of the evening in our room "studying", though I don't think either one of us got much work done. Our evening was punctuated by visits from other people. Catherine came in to ask Emmaline to look over a paper she'd written for her theology class; Daphne and Rachel bounced in twice, once to invite us to go with them to Clement's, and once to ask us for a movie to watch after they'd been to Clement's and found that it was closed. We could hear them laughing outside in the street, and when they came up to their room they had lost none of their hyperness. Daphne started to do disco dancing in our room while Rachel stood and laughed and made outlandish comments, and Emmaline and I, rather taken aback by the whole proceedings, sat and laughed at both of them.

I had Facebook messages to answer, so I did that at first, and then settled down to attempt to write the next paper for Late Medieval Literature about Chaucer. I don't know why, but writing about Chaucer is like pulling teeth. It's quite disconcerting to me to be so completely unable to write.

At about eight-thirty, I got on Skype, and found to my delight that Syneva was on also. We talked for about half-an-hour, an intense catching-up-on-each-other's-lives conversation. After she left to teach a piano lesson, I got another paragraph or so written. Then Emmaline and I talked for awhile. I had almost settled down to work again when my mother called me. I talked to her for a little while, and then to Stephen. Stephen and I basically just teased each other for ten minutes and then said good-night. I went to bed and was in bed by about eleven-thirty.