Five and a half weeks in...

We've made it to our first homeleave. So far the school year has been pretty good. We had a good Senior Retreat, my third in four years. We elected Senior class officers and I think we got some good ones. There were some issues during the retreat, but nothing that we haven't survived, although one of our senior boys was expelled afterward.

My classes are going pretty well. My first section of English is so quiet. I practically have to beg for participation. Second section I have to cut them off. Class dynamics are so weird, one group will love something and the second just won't care about it in the least. My business math class I have 28 students. (!) I'm pulling my hair out a bit with this one. My classroom is too small for this many students and it ends up getting really loud really fast. I'm already really frustrated with it, which is not a good sign. I've made seating charts, I've threatened, I've taken points away, I've nearly cried in class... nothing is working. I'm going to make a new seating chart this week and give it another go.

Our housemate has made it almost six weeks. We're hoping to start integrating him back into the dorm soon. Maybe a night or two a week at first to see how he handles it, and hopefully by this time next month he'll be back in pretty much full time. We've felt mostly pretty good about it, but we do miss our privacy. And he's messy. That's annoying. I mean, I'm no neat freak, but this is beyond that.

This homeleave we went to New York for a couple of days. Tuesday afternoon we drove to Newark, New Jersey and got into our hotel. Then we got tickets to In the Heights, so we went into the city. It was a really great musical. More modern music and dancing. It was about two days in Spanish Harlem. We recommend it. It was right up there with Wicked and Billy Elliot.

Wednesday we slept in a bit and then went to try to get the lottery drawing tickets for Shrek the Musical for the Wednesday matinee. Lucky for us there were only about 16 people there trying for the 16 tickets, so we got cheap tickets and pretty good seats for Shrek. It was fun, not as awesome as some of the other shows we've seen, but still a good time. Then we found the Strand, New York's largest bookstore, with used, new and rare books. My book loving heart enjoyed it. Then we got some awesome Thai food (they have vegetarian duck) down near China Town.

Thursday we went to Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Michael's been wanting us to try out for a couple months, so we finally went. To audition you have to sit through tapings of the show, so it was really long. We got there at about 10:15 and we weren't done until 4:30. To audition, they have you come into the studio and sit to take a 10 minute, 30 question multiple choice test. About 200 people tried out, and they don't give the results until after three tapings of the show. Which was a really long time. We were pretty done by that time. And the test was really hard, so we didn't think we had passed it at all. Only about ten people did pass, and actually, I was one of them, and the only woman! I was pretty nervous. Don't really want to go on TV. Anyway, so after the show I had a short interview with one of the show's producers and they took my picture (we had already filled out these long questionnaires earlier), and that was it. I'll hear in a couple of weeks whether they want me for the show or not. Really, I'm pretty OK if I don't get on, because it just makes me anxious to think about it. But at least I know I'm smart. I guess, it's really just trivia, not smartness. Actually, I think it's just as much about being able to make good guesses as anything.

So anyway, we're home now and enjoying a quiet Sabbath together. Tomorrow we're back on duty. It's nice to have the house to ourselves for a little while.

July recap

July was kind of a mixed bag. By the first week of being home, I was so bored I wanted to cry. So we started trying to fill our time. We cleaned every room top to bottom and rearranged some things. Put together a new book case and shoe rack for some of our excess stuff. Then we started a diet and we tried out two different fitness gyms (I think we might try another one next week). Michael was the dean on duty in the boys dorm for two different weekends. Then last week his sister came to visit for a couple of days. We went to New York and shopped, tried for the Wicked lottery. There must have been at least 400 people there. We did not get tickets. We did have some amazing Thai food down in the China Town/Little Italy area. They had some fantastic vegetarian duck. We also went to Philadelphia and did some shopping at the King of Prussia Mall, the largest mall east of the Mississippi. We stayed the night last Wednesday, took Amanda to the airport at 6:00, then drove to Atlanta.

We spent Friday and Saturday with Justin and Shelli. Mostly hanging out, playing games, talking, eating, and a little canoeing. Then we exchanged our Loser's trophy. (Michael and I are the most recent losers.)

Late Saturday night/early Sunday morning I drove to Nashville, then Michael kept driving to Louisville. I hung out with the family while Michael was in rehearsal for his longtime friend Joe's wedding. On Tuesday my sister woke me up to tell me that Minnie, our family dog for the last 16 years, was sick. For the second time in three weeks. She wasn't moving and wouldn't eat. We decided it was time to say goodbye. Christa, my mom and I went to the vet and said our goodbyes. The vet and the assistant were really kind and she was gone in just a few seconds. We buried her in the backyard during a very fitting rainstorm.

Tuesday night I got myself up to Louisville, and Wednesday evening was the wedding. It was lovely. And after the wedding we drove back home. We got here about 9:00 this morning and slept until 3:00. Now we're relaxing a little until I go on duty as the girl's dean for the weekend. And next Tuesday we start pre-session meetings. So that's pretty much the summer. It's been good.

Recent pictures

Dessert inspired by Shelli.


Our hotel in New York--Hotel Wellington


The Daily Show building




Our seats at Billy Elliot-that's the orchestra pit just past my knee.


The night view from our hotel room


On the train back to Newark


An owl we saw on Sabbath afternoon in Nashville


The Japanese Garden at Cheekwood


Beautiful cherry tree


I got a haircut. Why do I ever grow it out?

Billy Elliot

Homeleave began Wednesday, and we left a little early to be sure to get to New York in time. We checked into our hotel and then set off for The Daily Show. We got there early, there were only about 15 people in line ahead of us, so I headed off to get some hot chocolate and a newspaper. It was freaking cold. I don't know. Somewhere in the 20s. So the hot chocolate kept us relatively warm for a few minutes. Then I tried to do The New York Time crossword puzzle with gloves on. Much more difficult to write neatly with gloves on. The guy standing next to us in line was pretty impressed with how much of the crossword we completed. I'm a crossword junky, but yeah the NYT is definitely a tough nut to crack. Anyway, we enjoyed the show, and definitely enjoyed being warm for a while. If you want to see the show that we saw live, it was Wednesday, February 4.

So after The Daily Show we hurried on over to Broadway and got a quick bite of mediocre food before going to see Billy Elliot. Which was amazing. Also, I was sitting about 2 feet from the stage. I ordered Orchestra, Partial View, which apparently means that you're off to the side, but so close that the actors spit on you. It was fantastic. Also, they had these little windows beneath the stage so that you could see the people in the orchestra pit. One of the lady trombone players was doing Sudoku on her time between songs. Another guy was reading. It was pretty cool to see them. Anyway, the show was awesome, but sitting that close to the speakers was a bit deafening. But still amazing. Maybe my very favorite. The dancing was fabulous. So if you're ever in New York you should go. For real.

So we stayed in our hotel that night, which was really nice, we booked it on Priceline, by the way. The Wellington, on 7th avenue at 55th street. It was a block down from Carnegie Hall, pretty cool. And across the street from the Park Central Hotel. So the next day we got up and had some nice hummus and crepes at a cute little French-ish restaurant, where our waiter was actually French. Then we decided that it was too cold to enjoy the day, and too cold to want to stay for another play, so we bought some lovely desserts and went home.

Today I'm applying for jobs and relaxing at home. It's a good homeleave. There will be some pictures to follow.

Supercalifabulous

My siblings have been visiting in the last week. Kirk came and went and came again and went again. Christa came and stayed for awhile and then went. We had a good time together. It's interesting how those sibling bonds stick even when you don't see each other very often. It's so easy to be together and feels so natural and we easily slip back into our childhood roles, good or bad. Hopefully, we don't slip all the way back.

We made the journey to Hawk Mountain, which is the first sanctuary made for predatory birds. One can see many birds there in the fall because of migratory patterns, and before it was made into a sanctuary, 3,000-5,000 birds were killed in the area every year. One book called it one of the top 50 places to go bird watching before you die. And since we come from a family of birders, we went. We saw some vultures, but no other birds of prey. Apparently September to early December is the best time to come. However, we did get to see the River of Rocks, which is basically what it sounds like. In some ice age or another, a glacier moved down the valley, and left in its wake a river formation of rocks. We could see it from probably a mile above. It was quite impressive. Then we hiked down to a boulder field which was pretty cool also.

I made fruit soup and black bean soup and Christa and I made crepes. So we ate well, even without a mother to make the food for us. Kirk left on Sunday, and Christa and I went to see Mary Poppins on Broadway. It was amazing. We both loved it. Of course, we grew up on the movie, so the similar parts were enjoyable, but they also added new songs and scenes from the books that were great too. They developed the Mrs. Banks character nicely and Bert was great. There were a few parts that we wished they had included from the movie, but they were small and definitely not necessary. And they really went all out, the set and costumes were fantastic, the singing-fabulous, the dancing was beyond my words. Mary actually lost a shoe into the audience at one point. Mary flew and Bert danced on the ceiling. So I highly recommend it. Of the seven shows I've seen, it was definitely one of the biggest, most colorful and amazing. Probably this one and Wicked were the most amazing.



So now back to the grind stone. I am starting to believe that spring will come. And trying to accept that it will probably still snow again. And that I'll probably live here for at least one more year. Sometimes I don't understand why God puts me in a place where it's so cold and so far from family and friends, things that make it more difficult to maintain emotional stability. But I hope and want to believe that God has a reason for it. Maybe it's the thorn in my side. It's a fight that I may never win, my struggle, my cross to bear. I don't want to believe that I may never be well on my own, but there's a lesson in that too. Learning to depend wholly on God, leaning on others and learning to ask for the help I need. I hate that.

Pounce is getting spayed today. I hope she doesn't hate me when she comes back. I want her to still be my happy little cat.