Now Playing: Football game at the stadium next door.

I'm so tired that I'm about to fall asleep at my desk, but I'll attempt to be coherent.

Today was a good day up until the point at which, just now, I looked at my planner and realized that I take the GRE next Saturday, a five-page paper for senior project is due the following Monday, and a MUS 3253 trimester exam is that Tuesday, followed in short order the next Monday by a letter of response to a peer's senior project paper, and the Monday after that by ten pages from the senior project itself.

Needless to say, I'm going to go into hibernation for a long time....

Anyway.

So today Rachel and I both took a little bit more time in the morning than usual, which was pleasant. I sat down and studied for the GRE while I ate my breakfast. Then I did my devotions.

Rachel left at nine o'clock for an economics research colloquium. At ten o'clock I walked over to Nicole's apartment. She's having an RUF party tonight, instigated by a combination of Tara, German class, and desire to make currywurst (bratwurst with extra spices, I gather), and the two of us were to spend the day getting ready for it.

Nicole and I, both tired, took her Hummer to Reasor's on 15th Street. It was crowded with the usual Saturday morning rush. We bought the sausages she wanted, and I bought things to make cookies with. Then we went back to campus, put away our shopping, and went to the caf to pick up lunch to go. We ate in Nicole's apartment.

After we finished lunch, Nicole did an amazingly fast cleanup of her apartment before she and I went shopping for other things. We drove down to Target on Yale and shopped for winter clothes. Then we drove down to the Promenade Mall and walked through JC Penney to find a casserole dish for Katie. It reminded me so much of Debenham's down in city centre in Belfast, all the counters of perfumes and jewelry. Nicole managed to find something for Katie, and after she did, we wandered around in the mall for a little while.

We found a funny wee shop that was like a magician's box. The ceiling was hung with paper Japanese lanterns. Nicole had been looking for Eastern-style silk trousers and found a rack of them, shimmering bright colors and floral patterns. While she looked, I wandered, in awe, delighted by all the pretty things. There were beaded earrings, canes, bags, scarves, saris, all sorts of random colorful things. By the door there was a whole stand full of masks, all feather and glitter and gaudy paint. Nicole bought a green-and-copper one to go with her silk trousers. I tried on a baby-blue-and-gold mask shaped like a cat's face. There were plumes and feathers and all sorts of strange fantastic combinations of shapes and colors.

After a couple of other stops, on campus, I went to my apartment to put things away before hauling the cookie-baking materials back over to Nicole's apartment. She had already started to grill the sausages on a George Foreman grill, which sat on the kitchen counter and spouted grease. I whipped up the cookies and put them in the oven. The apartment was hot and smoky with the grill and the oven running at once. Jacob, his roommate, and Nicole's parents all arrived. Then RUFfians started to show up: Amy and Rachel Jr., Laura, Hannah, Holly and Kevin, Jenny M., Rachel Sr., Bob, the Tyree brothers, Brandon, James and Eleanor, Tara.... The apartment was full of people sitting in groups, at the small dining room table, on the floor in the bay window, on the old battered green leather couches around the TV. I finally ended up curled pleasantly on the floor behind the sofa with Tara, the two of us talking quietly underneath everyone else's banter.

Tonight's TU football game started at seven o'clock. The sun was already going down and the evening growing cold. People began to leave. Tara, Rachel Sr., and I were among the last to leave. Tara had ridden her bike, so Rachel and I said good-bye to her and walked back to her apartment. I spent an hour drinking tea and working on a GRE maths practice problem set before hurrying over to ACAC at eight o'clock to study with one of the guys from PHIL 2113 for our midterm on Monday. He's Lithuanian, I think, and on the track team. He genuinely seems to want to learn the material and do well.

We studied for an hour, and then I walked back to the apartment. The night was noisy. Halftime was just finishing in the stadium. The noise of the music blaring over the PA system and the announcer's voice bounced off the buildings, disorienting, echoing between the library and the chapel. Crowds of people were moving up and down the footpaths. The lights of the stadium blazed on the southeast side of campus, but to the northwest, a few stars were shining clear and cold in the black sky. I longed to get away somewhere quiet.

So tired. In the apartment, Rachel was sitting on the sofa researching amendments to the Colorado constitution so that she can fill out her absentee ballot. I sat down at my desk, too tired to study until the moment mentioned at the beginning of this post. I had thought my schedule was crowded--until now. Let's hope I make it through to Thanksgiving....

"Lift up your heads, o ye gates!
Lift them high, ye ancient doors,
That the King of glory may enter in!
Who is the King of glory?
The Lord strong and mighty,
The Lord mighty in battle."