Now Playing: Flook, "Haven", Track 2, "Gone Fishing".

Warning: I'm so tired that I can hardly see straight, so if this post is weird, that's why.

Reasons why:
a.) Haven't been sleeping well lately
b.) Have had weird dreams when I have slept (I dreamed very vividly last night that colonies of bacterium were living on my shoulders)
c.) Enormous thunderstorms have happened at night, which is truly awesome but also not conducive to sleep
d.) Woke up at a quarter to six this morning

And therein lies the tale....

Woke up, dragged on clothes, ate breakfast sitting in the dark at my desk, and crept out of the apartment so as not to wake Rachel. The east was just beginning to be grey. The morning was chilly. Sparrows were already chirping shrilly in the eaves of the apartments, though. I walked across campus to ACAC, seeing only the early-morning maintenance workers on their way to the physical plant building and the caf.

In ACAC I met the other faithful few from Mortar Board, our resident senior honors society. When my grandmother was at uni at SMU in Dallas, being in Mortar Board actually was "one of the highest honors an undergraduate could receive" (quoted from the script I heard repeated all morning). She always gets teary-eyed when she reminisces about how she knew she was selected for Mortar Board when she saw her sister stepping off the tram. However, at TU, Mortar Board is, for better or worse, rather a joke, known only for its extremely peculiar initiation ceremony.

This ceremony involves waking up ridiculously early (as previously noted), donning flapping black graduation robes, marching around campus in a big group, singing the Mortar Board song, banging on apartment doors or barging into classrooms, and "tapping" the selected student on the head with a graduation cap. ("Tapping" being reading aloud the schpiel quoted above, informing the student that he or she was excused from class for the rest of the morning, and then hitting them lightly on the head with the cap.)

Hence, at about seven o'clock, after a long delay, we all marched over to sorority row, where we managed to get into two sorority houses to "tap" new members. Then we went to the apartments, where we unceremoniously woke people to inform them that they had been selected. And so it went.... We even went into the volleyball gym, where the team was practicing. One of the coaches thought we were a choir, though I don't know how he made that mistake, since our singing left a lot to be desired.

We had about an hour-long break at eight o'clock. Then we were mostly going into classrooms, singing in the hallways of the buildings. People in Kep stared at us as we walked past; the secretaries in the business building smiled at us. We happened to go into one of Philip's classes in Kep, so he and I wrinkled our noses at each other while the selected student was "tapped". It was amusing to watch the students' and professors' faces in the classrooms: the professors generally watched us with bland good humor, having been warned ahead of time via e-mail, while the students gaped or raised eyebrows. Apparently there were usually people who had applied but not been accepted in the classrooms, and whoever had done the actual tapping always complained afterward about feeling awkward.

One of the students had skipped class. Accordingly, we all marched over to the frat house where he lived, went upstairs, banged on his door, and "tapped" him, joking the whole time that he was going to have his new membership revoked immediately for skipping class.

So my entire morning was spent parading around campus, listening to the other members chatter away, mumbling the Mortar Board song, and trying not to look too awkward while we crowded into narrow spaces in classrooms and apartment balconies. At least the morning was pleasant: cool, sunny, a high sky criss-crossed with contrails.

At eleven o'clock, I ducked out to go to "senior salute". Another peculiar tradition: the Great Hall upstairs in ACAC turned into a maze of tables at which graduating seniors can purchase photos or class rings, sign up for career services postings, check to make sure that the reader pronounced their name correctly, etc. I picked up my cap, gown, and tassel, and then went to Tyrrell to practice flute. After I practiced, I went to the SAC in Mayo for the Mortar Board lunch. Stephen was tapped today, so I sat with him and a couple of his friends.

After HIST this afternoon, I went straight to the CGE to work for a couple of hours. The CGE was fairly busy this afternoon. I worked on formatting the international students' study abroad handbook. At half five I walked over to ACAC. Philip had promised to teach me how to use the espresso machine at Carrello's. When I got there, I was treated to Amy, Jenny M., Andrew, and Philip hanging out together.

At seven o'clock, Hannah came to our apartment for prayer. We chatted until Rachel Sr. entered. When she came in, she was holding an absolutely stunning spicebush swallowtail butterfly in her hand. She set it carefully on the sofa, then on the carpet. Hannah immediately got down on the floor to look at it, and I pulled out my camera. It was one of the most perfect butterflies I've seen in a long time. Rachel said she'd found it on the ground, but it was completely undamaged. Beautiful: glossy black wings, sleek veins, iridescent blue, stunning red-and-gold eyespots, elegantly curled antennae. Hannah and I sat on the floor and stared at it while Rachel made jasmine green tea for the three of us. We all watched the butterfly for a long time. It crawled over the floor and then rested on the wooden moulding at the base of the wall. Finally, Rachel gingerly scooped it into a plastic dish, and we took it outside and put it in the grass on the new U.

Then we went back to the apartment. Lotus tea tastes exactly like honeysuckle, Hannah and I decided. Childhood memories for both of us. The three of us shared prayer requests, largely for provision for housing and work and guidance. Then we prayed through Psalm 84. Hannah read out of the Northern Irish split-leaf Psalter since she didn't have a Bible. The image of the butterfly was fresh in all our minds. So intricate, lavishly beautiful--and yet God says in Isaiah 43, "you are precious in my eyes...". If the butterfly is so incredibly beautiful, but God does not call it precious but reserves that term for His people....

After we prayed, we chatted for awhile. Hannah left at about a quarter past eight, and Rachel and I settled down to work.

I worked pretty intensely on poetry for two-and-a-half hours. I also rang Crystal and chatted with her for twenty minutes or so. Finally, when my eyes felt as though they were about to fall out, my muscles and joints were stiff, and my stomach was an acid knot from tension, I stopped and got on Facebook.