Sound the foghorn!--

Who in the world cares to know the particulars of my state of health?

I'm inclined to say "no one."

However, for the enlightenment of any random person not found within that category: I have a head cold.

I wish sometimes that teachers had informative foghorns, so they could magically penetrate through headcolds, like mine. I'm so dense these days.

Now let me impersonate Captain Obvious:

(*Da-duhhhnn!*)

"I have lots of homework!"

And... sad to say, that's pretty much my life right now. After the head cold and the homework, well, there isn't much left of me.

I love driving to the bus stop early in the morning, standing there in the cool (!!) breeze, watching the sun rise. One day, there were gilded clouds, and another morning, the whole horizon turned bright pink. Then the bus pulls up, you find a seat, exchange a few pleasantries with the bus driver..
"Good morning!"

"Good morning to you, too!"

"Say, I was wondering--do you go up there to the--ah--Seretean Center?"

I answer to the affirmative.

"Well, I drive right by there, and if you pull that yellow cord behind ya there, I'll stop right in front and let ya off."

I told him that would be just GREAT, explaining a bit.

"I noticed your instrument yesterday, and was wondering if that's where you were going--"

then he starts off on a story about a lady he usually picks up on the ten o'clock bus, but by now he's facing front and driving, so his words sound like this:

adppdfjapeifjpaoidjapoiryapweoihafdsjfasdoijfpaosiPOIDja;ldjkfpoiwehJAIOPEhafdAEjawhfpdoa.....

I smile brightly, make a nondescript remark, turn around, and begin studying for The Monstrous Greek Quiz...

I can't get over the oddities of buses: their drivers, their various kinds of loud music, and their curious passengers. I'll get used to them someday, of course...

And that's the only interesting thing I have to say at the moment. My music classes (two of my nine credit hours) are consuming life at the moment with studio class, rehearsals, sectionals, lessons, and (most of all) practice hours.

Home life is just a little stressed at the moment. Pray it settles down a whole bunch. None of us enjoy being cranky, but we all are, for some reason... >_>

I've read all your comments, and will reply to them, just as soon as I publish this emaciated little shred of scrapiness.. You all have a blessed day,

Annie

Vhat ahr you 'sinking' abaut?

Well, let's take yesterday as an example.

Papa dropped me off at Squire's Landing about two minutes before 7AM. I stood there with this grave, silent young student who apparently lives in that neighborhood. (still haven't mustered the courage to say one word to him--yet I have this feeling we'll be riding the same bus all semester...) Bus drivers in town are crazy. They never come exactly on time--sometimes they're early, sometimes late. Somehow the bus drivers are always in a tremendous hurry. So yesterday morning, I stepped on this contraption, found a very hard seat with no handrail in sight, and braced myself for inevitable sharp turns, fast stops, and teeth-knocking bumps. It's like an amusement park ride. Even the most mild-mannered, nice old bus driver becomes a maniac behind that big wheel. Those mysterious buttons and knobs inspire a certain wild insanity--especially in the minds of those bus drivers who have long, around-town routes--that compels them to sail by bus stops and swerve around corners.

Anyhow. I got on campus, with my violin in tow. It sat with me all the way through Calculus class, and afterward I went to the Seretean Center to see about renting a locker. Between 7:30 AM Calculus and 3:30 PM studio class lies this long, uncharted expanse of time in which I absolutely do NOT want to tote that lug around from class to class to library and back again. No thanks.

The lady in charge of lockers wasn't in that day, so I talked to one secretary who told me how to find them, and then to another lady who issued me a practice room key and a combination lock. I stood by her desk for a full five minutes learning how to open the lock. Then I went downstairs, used a practice room for maybe forty minutes, then spent another five minutes re-learning how to open the lock. I put my violin safely inside (safe from myself, who would fiddle with the lock yet once more to get the violin out again). Then I tripped up to the library, bumbled around my Maple TA program some more, sent a couple emails, reviewed my Greek alphabet one last time, and tripped over to Greek class.

Greek is fun, because Dr. Epstein is fun. I took notes of all his ramblings (somehow they were all pertinent ramblings--how he does it I'll never know). At the very end of class, we were reading through some words. One word was epigrama. So he gave examples of epigrams, mentioning one about the troubles of keeping a mistress, then went off about how Greek men who tried to bring their mistresses home generally met with Nemesis. Here he cited a couple famous Greek literary examples. He went back on to Nemesis with a story about his car... and that was close to the end of class.

Somehow, it all had to do with
~the word we were defining
~Greek literature
~Greek culture
~and Nemesis

Which is what makes his lecturing style so bizarre. We learned much, were entertained, and didn't even notice the distinction between the two.

Anyhow.

I attended orchestra rehearsal yesterday, and was, as an American seaman into the British fleet, impressed. Before my audition (koff) I was given all the scores, a syllabus, and a seat in the second violins (in the very back of a very small section).

Thirty minutes after rehearsal, I walked up to Dr. Droste's office, badly played a couple excerpts that I had only started playing yesterday, and he said. "Great. Fill out this form. You're in."

It was like something out of "The Court Jester." Yet I'm very thankful I'm in, all the same.

I've met several nice people on campus--none of them Christians that I know of, unfortunately. Two of them were helpful bus drivers. Two are girls in my Greek class. And two are girls from the orchestra. The rest were random bus passengers that wanted to talk, that I will probably never see again.

Ah, well. It's been interesting, and just now starting to be stressful. Thanks for all the prayers, and if you're wondering, I still need them. O_O

Last night we had our Chinese friends from OKC over for a couple hours. They had dinner and ice cream with us, and we caught up on various threads... their two-year-old daughter talks up a storm these days.

I didn't go to Lights on Stillwater, because I was very tired. But I wish I had gone, just so I could have been there. Tlepolemus informs me that it was quite the time.

I have to go now--talk to you all later!
Annie

"If your enemy is hungry...

...feed him poison."--Fric

Ok. Here I am again, with very little new.

The 1000-year-old Irish Psalter was a very intriguing case. I heard about it first on Mari's blog...

Here's some new silliness, borrowed from Pastor Shea's blog.

And we listened to this to on the way home from the YMCA last weekend. The show isn't in the archives yet, but it will be! Look out for the bluegrass harmonica player. He was the weirdest piece of virtuosity that I've seen anywhere.

And here is my latest book.

School starts in less than a week. I'm signed up for a 7:30 calculus class with a dubious Staff Instructor, whose name I will discover on the first day. X_X I'm currently still investigating the violin and classics courses. (oh, the joy of enrolling one week before classes start! Everything's full... :)