Battlefields in the Dark

You know, everything with regard to school is going much better than I'd thought. In fact, I think that such a good time justifies a list.

Good Stuff about Gettysburg '06

1.) New friends, especially flirt-happy David and football-crazed Katie. Love these guys and our late-night war councils!

2.) Being infinitely more sociable than last time. What a difference time and transformation have made! Now I don't have TIME to mope around. . .too busy scrambling to finish assignments, playing board games, making Wal-Mart runs, working part-time, working out at the Y, and goofing off in general.

3.) Walking on pitch-black battlefields at midnight. So quiet, so requiring trust, so good with a companion. And lemme tell ya, these folks are absolute fiends about walking. A quick jaunt to Lee's statue and back takes an hour and gives you a lot to think about.

4.) Okay, I'm all about ecumenism, but it is nice to be among Lutherans and to get each other's jokes, especially the really pathetically common ones about green jello and Lutefisk. Yeah, I've heard 'em a million times, but at least we're all on the same page.

5.) A grab-bag of other experiences: dining with Dominican monks, hurling Greek jokes at one another ("What does Johnny Depp say when he plays golf? 'GAR!'" and "Idou! A squirrel!"), memorising the hours of the Beer Mart, the kazoo band for our flag football team, hours of Risk and creative procrastination. . .I'm really enjoying myself here.

Of course, add to all this the relative pleasantness (and pain) of a crush, and what do you get? Impending heartache, I'm sure. But for now, I'm just going to live and sing and get in some good belly laughs and learn a lot more about myself and God working in my life.

In the meantime, I miss you, tiny Hebridean island. I miss you, Lauren, and Sam, and Marie, and Moses, and Hannah, and Pip, and Ben. Matty, Hazel, Rhiannon. . . So many people my heart yearns to be close to again. But perhaps at Christmas. Christmas.