History Repeats Itself

About 15 years ago, I had a little cowboy. Well, sometimes he was a cowboy, and sometimes he was Timmy Martin, with his faithful dog Lassie. I'd have to be Ruth Martin and he'd ask me for a sandwich and a glass of milk so he could have a lunch just like Timmy on the TV. But he was sometimes a cowboy, too, with a horse and a bent stick in his homemade holster for a gun.

That little boy grew up and is in college now, but now I have another Timmy Martin asking me to be Ruth Martin and make a sandwich and glass of milk, and I hear yells of, "LASSIE!" ("woof woof!") "LASSIE!"

And now the chaps, boots and cowboy hat are being used again . . . only this time, it's a little girl, and she wants to be Roy Rogers. I like how the smiles are almost identical.


And this is ten years ago, when I had three cowboys:

Evening Walk

The light was great yesterday evening - I still don't know what I'm doing with my camera and lighting, but these caught some of the golden/rose anyway.

Miss M in Motion

This is an accidental shot, snapped randomly before all the light was gone as we went home from a walk a few weeks ago.

Camera Experiments: ISO

I'm trying to figure out what difference ISO settings make. I remember that you were supposed to use 100 film when you were going to take pictures in bright light, and 800 or even higher (1000!) for low light, although that would make the resulting picture grainier. But on a digital camera that uses no film? Hmmm.

So I stayed up late last night and played with my camera, using the subject I happened to have at hand - a sleeping child laying next to a stuffed dog. I didn't use a flash, although the camera's auto-focus works by shining a light on the subject, so she still ended up getting light in her eyes. She didn't stir, though.

The main difference I noticed is that, using 100 ISO, the lens/shutter stayed open longer - it took longer to take the picture.

[Images Moved]

I'll do more now that I have natural light.

I think I've learned that, in order to get the crisp, clear portraits I want, I need to select 100 ISO instead of letting the camera decide which ISO it wants.




I also think that, if I'm going to do any more of this, I need to do it somewhere other than my blog. How about a blog for this kind of silly stuff? It'll just be for my photo experiments.

In which I get wet and don't mind

Some mornings you can just tell when you get up that it's going to be a good day. The sun is shining, you feel clear-headed and refreshed, and the hint of some happy dream tickles your memory. Some mornings, on the other hand, you wake up long after your alarm with only thirty minutes before you have to be somewhere, and you have a shower to take and somebody has left the bathroom door locked on the inside, so that you have to stand there with a screwdriver for ten minutes trying to get it open.

Guess which sort of morning this was. But luckily it was not a portent of the day ahead. Of course, I did leave my umbrella in my room because the weather looked fine, and of course it did rain this afternoon, but what can you expect when you go out without your umbrella? (And I promised myself yesterday I would never again live in an umbrellaless state.)

Today was another full day of classes--similar to Monday, except with a piano accompaniment lesson in the morning and a voice lesson instead of theater work in the afternoon. I received my instructions for accompaniment today: I'm to accompany two students during their lessons, as well as practicing with them during the week and doing performances with them. Which could be a great experience, or could be nearly impossible depending on how many and how difficult are the pieces the students are doing.

Our humanities class was assigned the first few books of the Odyssey today, and our professor strongly recommended that we get together in groups and read it aloud. I found another student who was interested in doing that, so he and I met in the cafeteria after dinner and read the first three books, taking turns reading aloud. It was great fun. I think we're going to try to do the same with future assignments. (We actually heard that another group of students got together and did the same thing this evening, so maybe in the future we could collaborate. Beowulf is coming up...)

Tonight I've been working on a paper for my photography class (on Jacques-Henri Lartigue), organizing and scheduling and shopping-list-making, and listening to Berlioz's Requiem and some Rachmaninoff with my roommate.

Currently listening to: Mozart's Haydn Quartets

In which I enter on a course of serious study

Today was my first full day of classes: Speech at 9:00, Old Testament at 10:00, Humanities at 11:00, lunch at 12:00, Photography from 1:00 to 3:00, work in the theater from 3:00 to 4:30 (they're still moving into their new theater; today we moved a bookshelf full of old scripts from upstairs to downstairs), choir practice from 4:30 to 5:30, and then dinner. My classes are all great--in Humanities we sat in a large circle and narrated / discussed things from our readings; in photography we learned about shutter and aperture and the other basic functions of the camera, and I had my first quiz--not a difficult one. In Old Testament we've been reading the first few chapters of Genesis, and today we discussed what we can learn (merely from the first part of the OT) about the natures of God and man. The best part was when the professor first asked what we learn that God is, and two people simultaneously said "just" and "merciful".

A selection of cameras in the photography classroom.

But it was a long day. My first experience with nine-to-five, I guess you could say. After dinner I was listless, until at twilight I decided to take some homework outside and read. I met my voice professor and we talked a while. Then I went back to my room and one of my suitmates played some Broadway for me (I may be helping him to prepare a piece for an audition). After that my roommate got in from music practice, and we've been listening to Cecilia Bartoli and some of Chopin's ballades and discussing Salieri and Stravinsky.

"I have formed my plan, and am determined to enter on a course of serious study. ...By reading only six hours a day, I shall gain in the course of a twelvemonth a great deal of instruction which I now feel myself to want."

Sunday

Another short post, 'cause I have a 9:00 class in the morning. I stayed at home last night, which was nice, although everyone was tired after the fair. This morning I went to a friend's church, which is near the college, and then went back to the college to study. Studied all afternoon; went to the library (checked out my first book, for a photography assignment); had dinner at the restaurant, 'cause the cafeteria closes early on Sundays. At 9:00 I went to the vespers on campus, which was an out-of-doors worship service. Afterwards they had a bonfire and everyone roasted marshmallows. (A friend and I tried to start a game of duck-duck-goose, but for some reason it didn't catch on...)

Kind of blurry, but you get the idea.

After that I went back to my dorm room and met my roommate, who's been gone for the weekend. And then I finished my homework. When I've posted this I'm going to go pack my backpack for tomorrow morning.

The Fair

Today we went to our local fair. We met Tim and Giselle and her family, which includes Miss M's best friend, C. Miss M was thrilled to see Tim.



The big kids went off by themselves, so all of my pictures are of Miss M and C on the kiddie rides. Miss M was a bit of a surprise - she wasn't scared of any of the rides, as I expected from my experience with her brothers (although she was afraid in a wildlife exhibit that looked like the inside of a cave, and she thought the loud rock music blaring in the midway was scary).




And Miss M had some ice cream just before we left.

CM Co-op

Our local area started a CM co-op this year - moms get together with their kids every Friday and do either a field trip, nature day, or full-blown co-op (which includes picture study, a handicraft, folksong, hymn, composer study, art instruction, Spanish lesson, science experiment - each taught by a different mom).

Today was "full-blown co-op day". One of the boys brought an impressive map he'd made of Italy for show and tell, and was able to point out and explain in an animated way which wars were fought where - Punic Wars, battle for Rome, Hannibal crossing the Alps. He knew his history!

For handicrafts, a mom taught basket-weaving. I've wanted to make a basket all my life - and I made one! It's tiny; about the size of my hand.



L made one, too, but didn't take his home.

J won't normally be doing this co-op; his own high school co-op starts next Friday. But he came today to socialize (and to provide support - literally! - for Miss M.)

On Studying Out-of-Doors (or, a panegyric on choir practice)

Today was my first day of studying. I didn't have any classes today, so I was able to work from 9:00-4:00. I took my books outside and sat on a bench in front of the dorm during the morning. Then I took a break for lunch (where I managed not to drop my salad on the floor, like I did yesterday). After lunch I found a quiet stairway in an unfrequented part of the campus and did as much studying as I could there, until I had to go back to my dorm to use the computer. (Lesson: bring the laptop next time.)

It was lovely in the shade, but the studying outside does have its drawbacks. Stairs, however unfrequented by human traffic, are not therefore free of ants, gnats, bees, and other bugs of less certain description. (The sweat bees got me twice today.)

After that was choir practice. We did a few warm-ups, and then went right into sight-reading our music. And the sound! So many voices singing together, four parts dancing in and out with each other, coming together at moments of shimmering harmony to make chords that are almost tangible--sound that envelops you and lifts you up and sustains you until the last breath--that was glorious. It seemed to be over very quickly. Even some of the seasoned choir-members, juniors and seniors, said that they don't often sound that good.

After that I went to the school's annual Fiesta on the commons, where they had quasi-Mexican food (spicy rice-and-bean egg rolls?) and a cliche Mexican band. After dinner was convocation, which today meant a guest speaker in the chapel. The speaker was pretty good, but it took them half an hour to get to him. The president of the college introduced a local judge who introduced the lieutenant governor of the state who gave a short address and then turned it back over to the judge, who introduced the speaker for the evening.

An instrumental trio gave a prelude to the address

When that was over I went back to my dorm and did some more studying, breaking it up with piano practice--I tried sight-reading a Beethoven sonata. It went fairly well, but then I had chosen the easiest one I could find. I attended the mandatory residence hall meeting in the evening, and came back and did some more studying. (I did actually finish my homework.) Luckily I have a 10:00 class tomorrow morning, so I can sleep a little.

First Day of Classes

This post will have to be short, I'm afraid, because it's past my bedtime. My classes started at 9:05 this morning--or rather I thought they did, but it turned out my piano class wasn't supposed to be until next week. So my first real class was Old Testament; right after that was Ancient and Medieval Cultures; after lunch was Photography; and in the evening was concert choir. None of the classes had real work today, it was all introductions and handing out papers and going over syllabi. But I think concert choir is going to be the hardest as far as time commitment. Their rehearsals and performances may cut into a lot of my classes. And I can already tell that my Old Testament professor assigns more homework than his wife, the Humanities professor.

After choir the school had a scavenger hunt. We divided up into teams by our mentor groupings and raced all over campus finding different clues and fulfilling the requirements (like playing leap-frog or dressing up and pretending to be in a music video). We raced to be the first team to make it to the prize (an Applebees gift card, I think) at the drive-in theater about thirty minutes drive away. There was some confusion about who won, but our team was awarded the prize. After that most of the freshmen went to the drive-in and saw The Dark Knight, while I went to Wal-Mart and got some much-needed dinner and three-ring binders for my papers. And I've spent the rest of the evening organizing and scheduling and writing and doing a little homework (now there's a concept for a homeschooler).

Emergency Room

Yes, we made an unexpected trip this evening.

Dad dislocated his pinky finger playing basketball with J. He wanted me to look up online whether that's the kind of injury you can just pop back in yourself, and the first site I went to said, "Do NOT attempt to home-treat a dislocated joint." So we all piled into the van, dropped him off at the emergency room, and went to Pizza Hut. After dinner, he was still waiting to be seen, so we shopped - and, finally, four hours later, he was treated and ready to go home. Luckily, the bookstore stays open late, so we had someplace to hang out while we waited.

Registration

The day began a little earlier today with three men converging upon a single bathroom, the result being that one did not make it to the morning meeting in time and had to slip in the back door after it had begun. (Suffice it to say, the bathroom schedule will need to be remedied.)

But after that morning meeting (which was about the internet and phone service on campus) I had several free hours, so I wandered around identifying buildings and looking for the locations of my classes. I found the library, and the main class buildings, and the music offices, and the sports center with the swimming pool. The pool is on the far side of the campus, about ten minutes walk from my dorm, but that is the farthest I'll have to go anywhere on campus. (One benefit of a small school.)

In the afternoon I had a meeting with my mentor to review the class schedule that we put together for me several months ago. I'll be starting with 17 credits, which is a lot: the minimum for a full-time student is 12. But I'm looking forward to my classes. Humanities is the backbone of the curriculum, and I've done so much literature that I have a headstart there. When I got my box of books for my courses I was pulling out the literature selections one by one and saying "Read that"--"Started that one"--"I did this last year". This semester it's mostly epic poetry like the Odyssey and the Aeneid and Beowulf.

After reviewing my schedule I went through registration, where I filled out a student profile, got my ID tagged, got a parking tag for my car, had my picture taken for the yearbook, and had my records checked one last time. Then I went to the music offices and worked out times for my music lessons. In the evening they were taking all the students to a water park which is just five minutes from our house (the college itself is about forty minutes away), so I went early by myself and came home for a while before I went to the water park. I was in the water for a while, watched a very silly synchronized swimming contest, and played some more volleyball. When they started breaking up I and a friend from my dorm went home in my car. (Yes, I said MY car. I didn't blog about that, did I? Bother.)

Before leaving the water park. It's a bit blurry because it was starting to get dark.

And now I'm back, watching people run up and down the hall in our dorm, waiting for my roommate to get in and hoping to get an early start in the morning. For then school begins in earnest. MUSC 130/Applied Study (Music)/Accompanying--9:05 sharp.

Feet-Wetting

Currently: listening to my roommate's piano practice.

Today the whole freshmen class was taken to a nearby summer camp (which is in its off-season at the moment). They had a ton of things to do there--a man-made lake with volleyball and basketball and a trampoline and zip lines, as well as a scenic train ride through the forest and frisbee golf (which I didn't do) and mountain biking (which I don't do) and free ice cream (which I very much did). They even had a plastic chess set, and I managed to find a couple people to play, although I'm still looking for some serious players.


They let us loose for the whole afternoon, then rounded us up for some planned games (which strangely enough weren't nearly as fun). In the evening they served us dinner and held a worship service in a tent erected for that purpose. After that they lit a bonfire and we had smores and played some more volleyball until the buses came to take us back.

It's astounding how many people I'm meeting every day. And then trying to remember which names go with which faces, and which ones are doing what, and which room numbers they have, etc. Someone remarked how many people they've seen that remind them of other people they know. And it's true--I've seen half a dozen people that look so much like someone else I know that I want to call them by the other person's name.

But for the most part I'm enjoying it. I talked with someone today who is in my mentoring group (of about fifteen students) who loves to play Risk, and agrees with me that Lord of the Rings Risk is far better than the standard one; so we might have some gaming in the future...

Day the second

Today was another long day. More interesting than yesterday, because of meeting more people. (When I say "meet" I mean meet and talk for at least two minutes, as opposed to just exchanging names.) In the morning there was a service at the chapel on campus; I expected it to be very traditional, but they actually had a praise and worship band for most of the service. After that I went to lunch, where I met a couple of guys who are rooming down the hall from me. Brennan's a theater major, and Seth is an English major from Massachusets and a big Red Sox fan. We all had some odds and ends to buy so we carpooled into town and did some shopping.

Soon after we got back my roommate arrived. We moved his stuff in and I got to meet his parents. I'd met him previously; he's a pianist, like me, and a music major, unlike me. (Note for Giselle: I think that that grammar is correct because "like" is being used as a preposition, the way they used to use "like unto". So when Aragorn says "...and become a wraith like them"--he may not be so far off.)

Then we hurried to an introductory lecture (which was mostly to introduce the staff we need to know); afterwards we went to dinner. Tonight was their Welcome Banquet, which was very nice. I sat at a table with my peer mentor, who turns out to be a humanities major who is taking classes in Medieval Literature and C.S. Lewis's Fiction, loves the Silmarillion, plays bagpipes, and has travelled to Europe. We had an interesting discussion about foreign food and the differences between Vegemite and Nutella (the consensus being that Nutella is far superior).

The dining hall after dinner.

After dinner was vespers, which was a worship service with communion and a short message. There must have been more than a hundred people there; it was neat to see so many college students worshipping together in one room (alternately standing and sitting on the floor, since they don't use chairs). After vespers a group of students (including me) went to Sonics in town and chatted for a while. And then when I got back my roommate and I took turns playing our piano pieces for each other and watching piano performances on YouTube. Hence a late night...but a fun one.

Red Moon at Night

That always reminds me of a Peanuts cartoon where Snoopy and Woodstock can't remember the last line and get silly making things up.

L and I both tried to get this full red moon on digital film. L's (the first one) is more successful, I think - the color is truer.




Here's my try; it shows the moon with a few other lights. It was too dark to get any horizon or anything.



And the least blurry image I was able to get:

So here I am...

In the last remaining minutes of my First Day. And yes, that means COLLEGE! I moved into my dorm room today; tomorrow my roommate is arriving, but for today I have the room to myself. The day has been filled with scores of new names and faces, which I've been handily managing to forget, as well as lots of information and sporadic conversation. It's been a very long day. (I'm drowsing over the keyboard as I type.)


I checked in this morning and my dad helped me to move all my stuff into my room, and I spent a lot of the afternoon unpacking and setting things up (that's my dorm in the picture). Then the rest of the family came over to see my quarters (and bring some things I'd forgotten to pack...); they left, and I went to dinner and sat with some acquaintances. After dinner all the students were split up into groups and went off with their peer mentors for introductions and scheduling.

Then came the highlight of the day--matriculation. The word comes from Latin matricula, "register". Sometime before Latin it was related to the root for "mother"--as in Alma Mater. But what it actually means is that all the new students filed ceremonially into the chapel to a thundering accompaniment on the organ; then everyone, parents, students, and professors, sang a hymn; the dean charged the students and professors to abide by the rules and traditions of the college, and the students and professors read their responses; and then all the students came up and signed a sheet of paper to be added to the college's book of names--the Lamb's book of life, as one of the professors jokingly called it. Every student, past and present, has their name on the list.

So I'm officially a student. After that a bagpiper led a long procession of professors in their robes, faculty members, students, parents, etc. from the chapel to the commons where a giant tent had been erected. They served refreshments (yummy cookies and yummier brownies), and they had a jazz band playing and lights all around, and people stayed a chatted for a long time. (I am told that this arrangement, with the tent and band and lights and refreshments, is a lot bigger than what they've done in previous years. I was also told that this college is one of the few small colleges that still has such pomp and ceremony surrounding matriculation. I love that.)


The last event of the day was a Residence Hall Floor Meeting, which was short and sweet--what to do in case of a problem, advice about dorm life, that sort of stuff. And then some of the guys left for an undisclosed location, while the rest of us--myself included--retired to their rooms.

"And there was evening and there was morning: the first day." - Genesis 1:5

Books: Hazardous to Your Health

Miss M got a paper cut on her thumb this morning while flipping through a picture book. This evening, she was looking at a poetry book and got another paper cut, this one on her finger.

She said, "Mommy, I don't think I should read until I'm a big girl." She liked her Hello Kitty band-aid, though.

Haven't You Been Wondering How to Do This?

Just when it seemed like it couldn't be done, this came across my RSS feed:

How To Describe a Smell

God's World

(For Giselle.)

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists, that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this;
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart,—Lord, I do fear
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year;
My soul is all but out of me,—let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Snake

This fellow (or was it a she?) showed up on our porch yesterday. It was about four feet long and was in no hurry to leave, so we got a good long look at it.

Graduation

This post has been long delayed. First, following right on the heels of my graduation, was the Charlotte Mason conference (whence we came home full of bloggables), and then we were waiting for my official diploma, which took a lot longer to process than it should have because of paperwork problems. (For my graduation ceremony we used a fake--ahem--symbolic document.) But now my diploma has finally come in and it's time to blog about my graduation.



Every year our local homeschool group does a graduation ceremony at a nearby church, with caps and gowns and a commencement speech and all of that, just like a real school. It's nice, but after seeing their ceremony, I decided I wanted to do something smaller and more intimate. And once that was decided we thought that this would be a good opportunity to have the formal dinner party that I'd been wanting to have since before the prom. (Bother--I didn't blog about that either, did I? That was remiss of me.)



So we started planning. Date: June 10, 2008. Location: our house. Guests: a handful of close friends. Programme: a round of drinks from the bar during introductions, then dinner and table games, then the ceremony, followed by music to be provided by self and guests. Menu: (on an Italian theme) salad and pasta and cheesecake. Theme: words--books, authors, word games, etc. Colors: light blue and peach. Decorations: chinese lanterns, candles, table runners, special place settings.

A dish for each place: two clear plates stacked together, with a piece of paper between them. The papers are title pages photocopied from my favorite books and dyed in tea.

The bit that was the most fun to plan was the bar. We decided to give it a poets' theme, so the bar itself (arranged on one end of the kitchen counter) was called the Poets' Corner, and each of the drinks (all virgin, of course) was named after a poet. We spent many fun hours in the kitchen beforehand with bottles of juice and grenadine and club soda, experimenting with drink mixes and trying to decide what drink went best with which poet. Edgar Allen Poe, for instance? Dark red, I think; deep and heady; with a mysterious flavor. (Result: a concoction of pomegranate and cranberry and some other juices that looked and tasted a bit like wine.)



The dinner was also fun to plan. A salad of romaine and arugula, followed by chicken fettucine alfredo with peppers and onions, and then cheesecake with a berry topping for dessert. I originally wanted to make the whole dinner ourselves, but when it came time we decided to buy the cheesecake already made (there is nothing to compare with a slice of Johnny Carino's vanilla bean cheesecake). The other parts of the meal my mom and dad ended up making the morning before the party while the rest of us cleaned house and decorated.



My first thought was to have the party outside, but the nearer the day of the party came the hotter that idea sounded (some of us had to wear tuxes, after all), and on the day of the party I changed my mind. (Or had my mind changed for me. You'd have to ask the others on that point.) And it proved well that we moved the party inside, because we had a lovely rain just as we were sitting down to dinner. However, because of that last minute decision carefully orchestrated adjustment to the plans, the boys and Giselle and I were still setting places and putting up decorations when the rest of the guests arrived. It's the first rule of planning, but may I restate it one more time? Always assume that you'll need more time than you think you will. Even when you think that you're assuming that you'll need more time.

We put the grown-ups at one table and the rest of us at the other. Our house wasn't really made for this many people...but we managed to fit.

The dinner went splendidly. Afterwards we played Bananagrams (which is like Scrabble solitaire among eight people) and talked and worked on the cheesecake. After that was the actual graduation ceremony: my dad made a short speech about my education up till this point, then I made a short speech about things changing, and then he gave me my diploma (the symbolic one). Cheers and toasts and perhaps some tears.



By that time it was dark outside and the weather had cleared up, so we moved to the deck and had an impromptu concert / worship session.

The boys enjoy a serious moment, expressing themselves...artistically.

After that people began to leave and the party slowly ended. I was left with graduation cards and a diploma, a mess of tables and decorations and a suitcase to be packed for the conference next day--but above all those the feeling of blessedness which David put into words so beautifully:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul...

Life's a bit daunting at times, but I'd have to agree with Clarence: no man is a failure who has friends.

The deck, when all the guests had gone away.

Pauline Baynes passes away

The news comes via NarniaWeb. This makes me sad; I loved her illustrations for Tolkien and Lewis. Her vision of Narnia has always been the real Narnia for me.