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.