I've Arrived

Actually, I have been here for over a week now and I am mostly settled in. Right now I am taking a break from homework and I have been listening to Simon and Garfunkel. Virginia is beautiful, so green and lots of trees. I have been taking frequent walks. There is a path that goes through some lovely trees and takes you into Purcellville if you go the right direction on it. For the most part I think my classes are going to go very well. I am slightly worried about Logic, but I'll try to work hard at it. ConLaw started off inspiringly with Dr. Farris challenging us to find a defense for liberty from reformed theology. That could take my whole time here. I think I'll work on it when I can. The challenge is now written on an index card on my bulletin board watching me do my homework. For those who want to know, my classes are as follows:

Greek I
Research and Writing
Biology w/ Lab
US History I
Logic
Constitutional Law

I guess I should tell an interesting story. So here it goes:
Saturday night a group of us decided to go swing dancing in a parking lot in Purcellville (we aren't allowed to dance on campus). So after a little deliberation I decided to wear my flip flops instead of regular shoes. Sure enough, within about 10 minutes of dancing, I landed hard on my foot from a flip sort of move and totally tore up the bottom. It started to bleed pretty badly so I laid down on the grass and got it elevated. One friend was very nice and loaned me her hankerchief to put on it to stop the bleeding and a couple other people ran off and got me stuff to bandage it up with. So I hung out there with my foot in the air watching people dance for the remainder of the evening. I got to come back in someone's car and a friend helped me up to my room. For once I was glad at how crowded our room is because that way I always had something at arm's length to use for support. I have been hobbling around ever since. Today was the first day I could wear dress shoes. Which means first day of school instead of wearing the cool outfit I had planned I had to destroy it with a worn out pair of flip flops. So the moral of the story is not to swing dance barefoot in a school parking lot two days before school starts. College teaches many lessons.

The Political Human Sacrifice, part III

This happened today, wish I had been there. More on it later...

This Week

I would like to think that I'll get another blog in before I leave, but I decided I would do a general update on my life right now. For the first half of the week I did a lot of shopping with my mom. As of yesterday, I think I got just about everything I need. There are still a couple things on my list, but nothing I am freaking out about. I guess I should be freaking out that I don't have a backpack, at least one that isn't held together by duct tape. Today I was mostly lazy. Liz spent the night last night and left early this morning and I ended up sleeping in far later than I intended. I wasted away the morning watching an old version of Pride and Prejudice that was on tv but got bored with it toward the end and wandered off to do nothing. Then I spend the afternoon watching The Andromeda Strain on tv after which Kelli and I made it just in time to see the last matinee of The Princess Diaries II. I liked it, so did Kelli. Go see it, great princess movie. Back at home I started to try to pack. I got a very little way and then could go no further since we don't have boxes or those bags that shrink your clothes. So I started a load of laundry and then wasted the rest of the night. A very nothing day indeed. Now I'll have a punishment of a day tomorrow since we leave Monday morning and I have plans for the whole weekend. Saturday there is going to be a TPCS alumni reunion picnic, then I may go see the TPCS production of The Phantom Tollbooth and after that my friends and I are going out to dinner. Sunday is church and then that evening a small going away party for me.

I hope I can get to the park before I go, and I want to spend more time playing with my dog Lucy. It makes me sad to think that she'll get to her old age while I am gone at school these next few years. I don't understand why dogs live such short lives. I want to spend a good amount of time with my bird Sanka too. As much as he drives me crazy I am going to miss him. I stress about him like he was my own child.

And that should about fill you in. I'll try to blog once more before I leave and I'll blog as much as possible while I am at school.

Dolphin Sightings

I am back again. I went with my family to Carpinteria all last week. It was a great time. And since we saw many many dolphins, I would like to share something.

I was having lunch (or breakfast, can't remember) with my family a few days before our trip to Carpinteria and we were talking about seeing dolphins at the beach and how we like it so much. Then my dad commented that he never saw them as a kid and in fact he doesn't think he ever saw them more than twenty years ago. I started thinking, and really, I can't remember ever seeing them even ten years ago. Now it seems we see them every time we go to the beach. And this Carpinteria trip really confirmed that. So we began to speculate, and it was either my mom or dad, I can't remember which now, that we all agreed found the likely cause for this new boom in the dolphin population. It was banning that certain type of tuna net. It did do a number on the dolphin population and now it seems that they have replenished their numbers. It is nice to be able to see a thing like that work out. I know I LOVE to see the dolphins, it makes the beach so much more....marine. And just so everyone knows, when they say at Sea World that the tricks they get the dolphins to do are all things they do in the wild, they ARE telling the truth.