SHAKABUNDE!

December 1st has been looming on my calendar for the last couple of weeks. The Monday before, I had to be ready to play my song, and on ominous Tuesday, December 1st I had to turn in my 3rd essay, a set of 3 poems and a journal, be prepared to perform in physics class and take a quiz, and later turn in a lab.

For whatever reasons, I had done little of any of those things until Sunday.

So. The 3 poems involved some adventures in the building, trading with people, getting and giving critiques. I finally returned everyone's poem and got mine back, too.

That essay was so hard to write, and I don't know why. I think I'm just tired. But I finally finished it.

I was up until 4:30 this morning, manipulating my way to a final draft of that essay, finding all the scattered pieces of my poems, and writing in that journal. I don't think any of it is really amazing, but it was all finished. Well... the journal wasn't really finished at all, but I had done at least one thing in each section, so that should be okay. Sadly, my physics wasn't even started. I just couldn't do it at that point. I'd spent all day focusing on something, so I had to let one of them go.

And I still needed to print.

I no longer have the ability to stay up all night. I exhausted it in the last year, so now staying up late is actually painful. When I got in bed at 4:30, I was terrified I wouldn't be able to get up in time to go print everything and make it to Spanish. In just a couple of hours, I could fail so many things, and the painful early hours would be for nothing.

But I did wake up. I was out of bed at 7:45. I put on layers and layers of clothing, and walked out the door to discover snow. Even tired, worried, and in a hurry, it was breathtakingly beautiful.

When I left, it hadn't begun to stick to the ground yet. It was light and slow, but it quickly sped up. By the time I was riding Schwinny past Holden Hall, it was falling so fast I had to wipe ice off of my glasses every few seconds.

I was so cold, and when I got to the library, I was coated in snow. I dusted it off before I came in, but I was still dripping my way to a printer.

The snow, falling fast and thick, looked overwhelmingly vast through the large library windows. I walked back into it and got coated again. Schwinny had a nice one-inch tall pile of snow on her seat and handle bars. I wiped it off at first, but it collected again in seconds, so I just hopped on and rushed to Spanish.

Somehow, I made it on time. I'm almost never on time Tuesdays and Thursdays. 8:30? Insanity.

I melted when I went inside. There was a nice puddle in my chair, and somehow, the idea of snow-covered people melting was extremely poetic to me.

On to Writing in the Outdoors. And we were, indeed, outdoors in all that snow. Today was the first day of presentations, so we walked around campus to people's various places. I was wearing tennis shoes, so I soon had soggy socks and freezing toes. But a classmate was kind enough to bring handwarmers for everyone. Mine didn't start working until after physics class, but it was incredibly nice of him anyway.

So. I turned everything in and had until 5 to finish the journal. On to physics, where I performed without incident and happily discovered the quiz is Thursday, not today. And there's a lovely Wednesday in between.

So I came back to Gordon, ate some soup, completed the physics lab, and wrote as much as I could in the journal. When I went to deliver it, I saw Caswell himself at work in his office. Oh my gosh. From there I went to the lab without incident.

Yes! Finished! Finally! 

I made it. Glorious.

I don't feel like I wrote this very well. Everything was so much more difficult, easy, daunting, encouraging, and beautiful than I can find words for right now. The point is that I'm amazed and extremely thankful.

The point is, I wanted to thank you and God.

I just really felt a thank you note was in order. I feel so good, even though I'm a little behind on sleep and might have lost a little weight. I've been so happy today, since I watched all these stressful things become okay, and I felt so amazing.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.