I won’t waste time with apologies for not blogging in such a long time. Then again…I just did. Anyway, towards the end of the semester (summer is here for me by the way) there was a contest for stories about Lake Bob, which is the little drainage pond on our campus. I told myself I was going to enter, then didn’t. They extended the deadline for submissions, and I decided that I would enter after all. I wrote a very true and honest story of my interactions with Lake Bob late one school night, submitted it, and won second place, so I might as well share it on here. Hope you enjoy.

The Watery Grave of Geoff and Miriam

Dedicated to Michelle, Emily, Iain, and Mikey

(a ‘Close but No Banana’ production)

Names of characters have been changed to protect their identities.

It was a dark stormy night. The moon poked its head through the clouds lighting up the lake for a moment. It was mesmerizing. The surface danced as the wind goddesses stepped lightly around, sending shimmering shockwaves speeding across the usually placid water. With each step the waters fled towards another shore sending out a plague of dark powerful spray that lay flat atop the surface. The goddesses of wind were pulling the trees into their dance. They swayed and moved to the rhythm of nature, pulled in by the enchantment of enticing little nymphs. Eliza and I stood at the edge of this tormenting water. 

“Are you sure you are ready to say goodbye,” Eliza asked barely above a whisper. 

 “What choice is there? They are gone!” A tear nearly slipped down my cheek. “Thank you for coming with me. They deserve at least some form of a funeral. I still remember my first experience with the dedicated pair. Their beauty struck me first. It may seem strange, but they were indeed lovely. I knew then that they were going to become a part of my life. I quickly learned of their dedication to each other. They were never separated without being somewhat lost and alone. It was a match made in heaven. It only makes sense that their lives would end together.” I shivered slightly.

We carefully pushed the bodies into the murky depths of Lake Bob. The moonlight temporarily cast a glow on the shapes then they sunk below the surface. 

“I remember the splash war with them during the dastardly weather of Irene, snow fights in October, and waiting and laughing in the late night McDonald’s queue.”

 My eyes fell as I realized that life would never be the same without them. They were closer to me than anything else has ever been. Water had killed them; how apropos that it would be their burial. I remembered how hurricane Irene was their downfall. It was that event that truly led to their death; it was then that they began to fall apart. Only a few months later they died, and now we were holding a funeral. Not many people knew Geoff and Miriam, my dearly departed friends, and none of these people were at this school. It was just me. Eliza went with me for support. She gave me a quick hug. 

“It will be okay. Come on we better go before security comes. This would be very difficult to explain to them.”

“Thank you so much for coming with me. You swear you will never tell anyone?” I asked with a slight pleading in my voice.

“Of course not!”

With that we turned from the wind-whipped water, hoping the water-nymphs would carry Geoff and Miriam safely to a better home. 

Walking back to the dorm I looked at my bare feet. They would never again wear my favorite purple flats. There were now resting at the bottom of Lake Bob.

 I thought I would never see them again, but the day after their burial, maintenance workers cleaned out the lake. I caught one last glimpse of my dear shoes. Alack, that was merely a parting view and now they are truly gone. 

 

Enjoy, all ye who read.

Emily

Spring has arrived! It has been in the high 70′s and low 80′s all week, and at least part of everyday has been spent outside. Today was an exceptionally exciting day.

I had a Theology test, so I woke up early this morning in order to have time to eat breakfast. I hopped out of bed and got ready. With a short sleeved shirt and a flowy skirt I headed out to breakfast then chorale. After chorale I did a little more studying then took my Theology test. I got out early and was able to eat a decent length lunch. Then came Rhetoric. After Rhetoric the fun truly began. I headed up to my room and Amy, one of my wingies, was running around with a small empty trashcan.

She paused for a moment and looked at me. “We still on for the water fight?”

“Yes!”

We had made plans to have a water fight today, but I didn’t know if it was actually going to happen, but indeed it was.

I changed into shorts and a t-shirt and then grabbed an empty trashcan and water balloons that had been given to me by another wingy earlier that day. We rounded up a few people and headed to the back of the dorms. We filled about thirty balloons and evenly doled them out. Within moments, balloons were flying. They were gone quickly and then the trashcans became of use. One person had a hose, and the other people filled up their buckets hoping that the person with the hose was nice enough not to completely drench you. Within a few minutes we totally soaked! It was so much fun!

After our water fight, we sat on the steps in front of our dorm and drew on each other’s hands, and chatted. It was really fun to drip dry in the sun and chat with a group of awesome people.

Then came one of the coolest parts! Another person came up to our little group and told us that there was a cool tree to climb out behind another dorm. We scurried over, still wet from our water fight. There was a small shoestring tied to one of the branches, so we could actually reach it. Jeremy, the one who showed us the tree, hopped up and grabbed the branch lifting himself up into the tree. Next Amy stretched up for it. She was pretty far from reaching, so I gave her a boost. She climbed up and scurried to up to the top. Now it was my turn. With a jump I was just shy of reaching the branch. I continued trying, deciding which angle would be the best to reach the branch. At that moment, Dr. Hake walked over. He had been walking around Lake Bob going over prayer note cards.

“I don’t know if this is a PHC approved thing, but I don’t think there is anything against it. Do you need help getting up?”

I was surprised and didn’t quite know how to respond. A professor had just offered to help me climb a tree. That was kind of exciting. I didn’t know if I was going to take the help, but after two more failed attempts at reaching the branch I gave in.

“I think I might take you up on the offer.”

He walked over and leaned down so his back was flat. I still wasn’t sure about it, but I stepped onto his back and then grabbed the branch and got up onto the tree.

“Thank you Dr. Hake!”

“No problem.” He smiled and went back to his journey around Lake Bob.

I was now up in a tree, and off all people a professor had helped me get up there. It was kind of cool to say the least.

The rest of the day was exciting as well. From writing songs for everyone that came into my lounge, to chorale practice for our concert tomorrow, to an ice cream social, to a really funny dinner conversation about doing fun things…which I think I accomplished a lot of today.

I’m very grateful for the lovely weather that God has been giving us this week. Flowers are blooming and trees are turning green. The air is warm and fresh, and it is the time for excitement!

Emily

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I must apologize for my lack of blogging (I’m getting really bad about this). Today, however, I’m going to relate the exciting adventures Michelle, Iain, Carrie, and I had in the Big Apple yesterday.

It all started at about 5:15 in the morning when my alarm went off. It was time to awaken and get ready for the day. I threw on the clothes I had laid out the night before, slipped my feet into my well worn and comfortable converse, and then ate two mini cupcakes for a thoroughly balanced breakfast. Right around 6:10 Michelle and I left the house and were dropped off at the Morris Plains train stop. We paid the fare and boarded the train heading for Penn Station, right in the heart of New York City. We arrived in the city right around 7:30. We were going to meet up with Iain and Carrie, two friends from school, but once we were in New York we couldn’t get a hold of them. We waited for about thirty minutes, then decided we could meet up with them somewhere else. Right then we wanted to be sitting down somewhere warm and drinking hot coffee. While we were ordering our coffee Iain called and we told him to meet us at the McDonalds where we had stationed ourselves. A few minutes later they arrived and our group was formed. It was time to tour the city!

On our agenda was Times Square, Central Park, the Metropolitan museum, the Statue of Liberty, and, hopefully, a Broadway show. We headed out towards central park, which was going to take us right by Times Square, and hopefully, TKTS which supposedly had cheap tickets for shows. We got to Times Square, and didn’t see the ticket place. After a phone call or two, we turned around, thinking that the ticket place was back, near where our walk had begun. After about ten blocks of walking we arrived at our destination…to find a tall business building with almost everything but a ticket place inside. Another phone call, and we discovered it was indeed in times square, and we had simply missed it. We turned around again and headed back towards the famous area. It was still early on in the day, but our feet were starting to tire from this needless expedition. Ten large blocks later, we were back where we started. Two streets further on there were huge lit up posts that read TKTS. If we had walked one more block in the first place we never would have had to make our little expedition. Sadly we arrived and discovered that the ticket place didn’t open until 3:00. So, we again set off for central park. It was a pretty long walk, but we finally arrived, and then walked through the gorgeous park. Check one off of our to-do list.

The Met. was near central park so we continued our journey towards the huge art museum. After a small amount of getting lost we arrived. It was right around now that Iain realized he had forgotten to take his pocket knife…if it can be called that…out of his backpack. We didn’t really know if he was going to make it through security, but we figured it was worth a try. Thankfully the bag check they did wasn’t super serious and he got in fine. He did have to place his backpack in the coat room because of its size though. Now it was time to buy tickets. The student price was $12…with the not very publicized addition of “suggested donation.” Being the poor college students that we are, we decided $1 each was a good donation size. Iain took initiative and went up to the ticket place.

“I need four student admissions please.”

The lady behind the desk smiled and rang up the total. “That will be $48, is that okay.” She was simply expecting a ‘yes that’s fine’ and we all knew it. Her ‘is that okay’ was the closest to mentioning the probably little known ‘suggested donation’ factor.

“Actually can I just pay a dollar per ticket?” Iain asked completely straight faced.

For the briefest moment there was a look of “Really? Is that necessary?” but it was just a moment, and then she smiled again and said, “Sure that will be fine.” She redid the numbers and charged four dollars on Iain’s card. We were in, and now spent an hour or two, walking through the beautiful art museum. It was amazing. Eventually the growling in our stomachs called us to find food. We left the Met. and walked to a little pizza place, because, if you are going to New York you have to get their famous pizza, right? It was delicious! (I’m sure the hunger gnawing away at us helped that a little) After we ate, we decided to head for the Statue of Liberty.

It was time to take the subway! We walked a little ways until we saw a subway sign. There was one on each side of the street. I made an offhand remark about the one right by us, but Iain was already crossing the street to get to the other one. We walked down the stairs, purchased a card, and then slid it through the machine and walked into the station. Once there we discovered that, to our dismay, we were on the wrong side. Now, in D.C. this wouldn’t be a problem; we could take a set of stairs that would get us to the other side. In New York, well…there wasn’t a way unless over without paying again. There were two Police officers standing about, somewhat idlely. Michelle walked up and asked them how one could get to the other side.

“Here, just come with us.” He said with a little bit of a laugh. Then along with a few other people who had made the same mistake walked out and then headed towards the subway entrance on the other side. “We will just let you in so you don’t have to pay again.”

We were all very grateful. And hey, who doesn’t want to have a police escort into the subway system.

Finally, we were able to board the correct subway, and we were on our way. Eventually we arrived at the stop near Battery Park. Again, Iain remembered the knife he had forgotten to remove from his backpack. This time he knew there was no chance of getting it past security. He decided that burying it in a little pile of dead plants would do the trick, and indeed, when he was done you couldn’t tell it was there at all. Then we got in line and got on the ferry heading for the island. It was a beautiful day, and the Statue looked lovely against the blue sky speckled with puffy shining clouds. Once we got the island we discovered that the Statue was completely closed so we weren’t able to go into the base, but it was still a marvelous view. We hung around, took some pictures, and rested for a while, then got back on the ferry and headed back towards Battery Park. Iain recovered his knife and our next stop was going to be TKTS, now that it was open.

A subway ride or two later, and we were back in Times Square. We headed for TKTS and stood in line. We had been told by people and the internet that you could get very cheap tickets to see most shows. Wicked was the top of my list to see, but Phantom was right up there with it. They did not have tickets for Wicked, so it was going to be Phantom. We set a highest price we would go and prayed we would be able to get tickets in that price range. We were slightly devastated when the price she listed was decently above our budget. We had one more hope, we were told that there was a raffle held at some shows for  2 really good seats at $26 a tickets. We hoped phantom might have it. They didn’t, and the price at the box office was also out of our range.

Iain offered a suggestion: “Well, since that didn’t work, we should go sit and eat. How about the Hard Rock Café? It’s kind of pricy, but the environment is good, and we can always just order some appetizers, and then get dinner at McDonalds or something.”

We headed to the café which was nearby. It was very relaxing, but I wasn’t satisfied with not getting to see a show. If that is horrible of me, forgive me. I love Broadway, and knew we all really wanted to see a show! I did the horrible thing of playing the part of a spoiled brat I think…I called my dad and asked for a little money to cover the extra the show was going to cost. I ended up talking with my step-mom, she was sympathetic to my cause, and said yes. We decided to just get an appetizer at the Café, and then headed back to TKTS. We got there and purchased four tickets for Phantom of the Opera. With tickets in hand, we had about an hour to kill, so we went to McDonalds to get a little more food. Finally, it was time to head to the show.

We walked back to the Majestic Theater where Phantom plays and waited in the line. We were seated. Not all together, because of the way the tickets were purchased, but all pretty close. Then the show began.

It was phenomenal. Phantom of the opera is one of my favorite musicals and I think I know the whole thing by heart….granted there are plenty of notes I can’t hit. But hearing it with live performers and a live orchestra was breathtaking. It is a fabulous show that I would not hesitate recommending. The Phantom’s voice was, by far, the highlight. It was beautiful…to say the least. It gave me the chills several times. Seeing the show was a perfect ending for the day in NY.

After the show, we split ways with Iain and Carrie. They headed to a bus, and Michelle and I headed for the Penn Station. We boarded a train about an hour after we got to the station and headed back to Michelle’s house. We got back about one and headed straight to bed!

In the end I’m pretty sure everyone had a really good time, were all thoroughly exhausted, and had no desire to walk for a while!

If you ever get the chance: Visit New York City…and trust me….Broadway is worth it!

Sorry for the long post…I have to make up for not posting in so long.

Emily

I think today I will give a confession: I do not sleep enough…as a matter fact I don’t know that many people at college who do. In the entirety of this week I have not gone to bed before 1:00 am, and at least three times it was past 2:00 am. I have an 8:00 am class four days a week which makes this less than ideal, but for some reason it still won’t click in that I need more sleep. I don’t know how I got into this habit; in my family, we always went to bed pretty early.

I remember back in the day when I was homeschooled. My bed time was 9:30 and my wake up time was 7:30 at the earliest. Granted, there were plenty of times I stayed up much later, but for the most part I got about 9 or 10 hours of sleep at night.

Even looking at my senior year in high school when I went to a private school, I still got a decent amount of sleep. I usually went to bed around 9 or 10 and got up at 5:30ish because my school was well over an hour away and because I took the bus partway, it became nearly a two hour trip. It was still 7-8 hours of sleep, and I survived just fine!

I think this decent amount of sleep started to really deteriorate in the summer, between my senior and freshmen year. I didn’t have school, wasn’t working, and really wasn’t doing anything pressing. I would go to bed more towards the 11-12 scale. Of course, then I remember that I was able sleep in until at least 8 every morning which is still 8 hours.

Okay, maybe it really stems from the time I spent at my dad’s house. There was no official bedtime, and I normally only went over when I didn’t have school, so I would stay up to all hours of the night, either at friends houses or with family. I enjoyed staying up late, and it didn’t affect me too much (except maybe a few Sunday mornings when I should have been a little more alert for church…but I never fell asleep in a church service).

Now I’m looking back at first semester at college. I started out with an average of 8 hours of sleep, for the first week, then it went down to 7. We were getting to bed by 12ish or earlier. Considering all the other people that I had heard of who got 5 or 6, I thought that I was doing pretty well. In fact, I was doing well until the middle/end of last semester. As paper season approached I found myself up later and later every night. Sometimes it was because I was truly writing papers or studying for test, other times it was because I wanted to hang out with friends. Soon nights were verging on the 12-2 spectrum. Normally falling around 12:30, which is still a decent amount of sleep, I suppose, though it continued getting smaller and smaller. The last week of school I averaged 5 hours a night.

This semester I started out on a burn the curfew pass note. In fact I think I burned two or three curfew passes in the first week and a half. I should explain a curfew pass: curfew is 12 on weeknights and 1 on weekends; freshmen get ten passes per semester that let them stay out one hour later. Curfew is the time you have to be back in your dorm, not the time you have to go to bed. Basically, I’ve been getting an average of 6 hours of sleep this week.

So present time: Sleep=not enough, reason=many….main one may be the amazing people that will stay up and talk. There’s nothing quite like the conversations you have at 1 or 2 in the morning.

I haven’t crashed yet, but I am trying to get more sleep….I think I’ll start by pressing snooze on my alarm!

Emily

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Hello world,

I want to apologize for not blogging in so long. It’s quite horrible of me!

I think I’m going to dedicate this blog post to what I did this Monday in Washington D.C.

Monday January 23^rd was the day of the annual March for Life held in D.C. My college is just a little over an hour away from D.C., so of course we wanted to go. My roommate worked on getting a group of people together, rather surprised that there wasn’t already a group going. She asked around looking for people and possible rides. It seemed that everyone was busy with classes, or sick. In the end, we borrowed our friend’s car and took five people total. We drove to Falls church and went down to the metro. We boarded the empty train and began the thirty-ish minute ride into D.C. Along the way various people got on and off. A stop before ours we saw a huge group of people with pro-life shirts on, which was really neat. Finally we made it to our stop and walked the short distance to the speakers for the march. I was amazed at how many congressmen and state representatives came to speak. After about an hour, we wove our way towards the start of the march. Finally it began and we meshed in with the crowd of hundreds of thousands of people all marching for the cause of life! The march curved up to behind the capitol building. It was an amazing experience and one that I hope to experience every year that I’m near D.C. After the March we walked around D.C. until about 7 p.m., and then we headed to the metro.

There is a rather funny story that occurred when we arrived back at Falls Church that I will share.

My roommate Michelle and I decided that we would go get the car because the other people still had to pay for their metro exit fare. We walked through the dark cold misty air to the parking garage where the car we were borrowing was parked on the roof. We pressed the button for the elevator. A few seconds later it opened, and a rather homeless looking and very likely high man holding a medium sized black plastic bag staggered out. I caught Michelle’s eye as we entered, with a “that is creepy” look. We pressed the button for the roof. As we waited for the doors to close, the man started walking back towards us. I’m pretty sure both of our hearts started beating a little faster. Was he going to get in the elevator again? He looked at us as he staggered slightly. “You…ya’ll gonna get trapped! You gonna get trapped!” He chuckled seeming amused that he knew something we didn’t. We were both concerned now, and still afraid that he was getting back on the elevator. The doors began to close, and he walked away still chuckling and muttering “you gonna get trapped.” I reached my hand through the door to keep it from closing, and looked at Michelle, as the man continued to stagger away muttering. She motioned for me to let the doors shut. As the elevator began to ascend, I had a slightly worried feeling. What if there was something on the top of the roof, or what if the elevator was really going get stuck?

“That was weird,” I said with a nervous laugh.

“Yeah, just a little.”

Finally the doors to the elevator opened and we walked out onto the roof. There were only about ten cars left. Misty rain fell through the slightly illuminated air. The black sky above seemed threatening. It was the perfect place for something horrible to happen. We walked really fast towards the car, extremely happy when we were safely inside. Once the other people were upstairs and in the car we began to tell them the story. Suddenly, it sounded like there was a knocking on the car and felt like we had run over something. I let out a slight gasp. “What was that? It sounded like a person!”

“I’m pretty sure it was just a bump,” Michelle said.

Indeed it was just a bump, but I was never so glad to get out of a parking garage and back on the way to school!

When it happened it was rather frightening, but looking back I’m able to laugh. Maybe someday I’ll have something similar happen in a story I write, only there will be someone on that roof…

Well anyway, it was an amazing day, and even though I missed classes for a day, and it was freezing cold (quite literally), going to The March for Life was well worth it! Hopefully next year there will be a much bigger group going from PHC.

Emily

We recently received an email from LuckyCinda Publishing concerning Emily’s entry into the 2011 California Fiction Writers Contest. Her novella, ICU, was up against other self-published books in California. Here is the letter:

We were impressed with your novel. You should continue writing as you have a future in this field. While your book didn’t land a top spot we found it to be noteworthy. This will qualify you for some free publicity in the next couple months as we announce the winners.

Also your name was drawn for a free 1/4 page ad in a local newspaper called The Inland Adventurer. So you might think about what you want to advertise and which photos to use. Let us know, we can put something together for you.

Congratulations.

Laura

LuckyCinda Publishing

Read More Here

They have subsequently interviewed Emily, and we look forward to seeing the interview in print!

[This post is a step aside from the ordinary. Thank you for reading! It could save a life!]

If we were to be honest, we are all pro-life.

Human beings have a built in mechanism that desires to preserve life. We fight and struggle each day to survive – sometimes against great odds. This principle is present in the very core of our society, and Hollywood demonstrates this idea movie after movie.

We cheer on the hero who is trying to rescue the weak and innocent (or at least his own self), while we boo the villian who is trying to destroy the life of the innocent or weak. But…are we missing something?

What about the weakest and most innocent of all people – little children – particularly those in the safety of their mother’s womb. The same innocent children who would continue to live and laugh and love and dream, except perhaps that the child’s mother decides to end its little life because of the lies of the pro-choice movement.

Murder is never justified by convenience! If so, it would have been fine for Hitler to kill millions of innocent people. It would have been okay for Stalin to do the same. Because a human being has not had the opportunity to take its first breath, makes them no less human than you or I, nor is the act of ending their heartbeat anything less than murder!

Who is going to save the children from the abortion industry? And it is an industry, masterminded by the greatest villian ever. Shall we continue to cheer him on? Or shall we stand with the truth and our own convictions to preserve life! Children in the womb are indeed living beings – this fact cannot be denied.

I implore you to watch this powerful video. It could save millions of lives! Then click on this link to see the one simple thing you can do to help end abortion.

BLESSED CHRISTMAS

This Christmas, give the gift of excitement and adventure…

ICU by Emily Rose Carde

All online purchases in December will include free gift wrapping and drop shipping

Buy Now $12.50

or

Click To Find A Store Near You!

All proceeds support Emily’s College Education

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The car turned up the long paved driveway towards the beautiful brick house set back in the isolated lovely woods of Aldie, VA. “They must be Republicans! They have a circle and a paved driveway!” Iain announced as the car arrived at the top of the hill.

Naomi and I looked at each other and couldn’t hold back the laugh. “So, Republicans like circles and paved roads?”

“That’s what Uncle Rickey said.”

“Okay so…it would be so nice to have a legit Uncle Rickey!” I said as we topped the hill.

“Yeah seriously! Who wouldn’t want a super rich uncle who has you as sole benefactor of the will?” The car stopped. “You got this one, Naomi?”

“Yeah!” She jumped out of the car and stuck the bundle of literature on the door, then ran back; and we headed to the next house on our list.

You may be wondering how this conversation ever started, or what we were doing where such a conversation made sense…well I don’t blame you!

I will explain. This last weekend was Fall Break. We got two days off of school over election weekend/week. The people at Patrick Henry College are very politically minded, and over election weekend, HSLDA works with Generation Joshua to put out SAT teams which help with campaigning. I am the last person in the world to do political campaigning. In fact, I said I wasn’t going to get involved in politics at all while at school, but when Fall Break comes and all your friends are either going out of town or going on an SAT, you have to do something. I chose the SAT.

I was thrown out of my comfort zone and into a sea of literature folding, literature dropping, phone banking, sign waving, standing outside the polls, late nights, early mornings, victory parties, news interviews, long driveways, a ton of laughter, and awesome people!

There are far too many stories that I could tell…but unfortunately time will not permit…so I will only tell a few.

I think I will start by explaining how you determine if a person is a Republican. On the first day, we ended up in the backwoods of Virginia delivering literature to huge homes off dirt roads and really long driveways. Among other things, we came up with a way to determine if a person is a Republican or a Democrat. Dear Nellie (the car) made numerous trips up very long driveways, so to entertain ourselves, we came up with ways to determine if we were giving lit to people who really needed it. We discovered (made up) that Republicans like circles and paved driveways. In particular they don’t like gravel driveways. But there were exceptions. If the gravel was covered in leaves they were still Republican, and if there was a circle at the end of the driveway they were still Republicans. They were also Republicans if the houses had redneck qualities…I’ll leave those up to the imagination. It was highly entertaining and made the long hours in the car full of laughter!

At the Polls on Tuesday I got a lot of practice braiding. You would think that I would say I got a lot of experience talking to people, but my braiding practice was much more exciting. During the early afternoon hours there was a complete lull in people coming to vote. My Roommate, Tara, offered to let me braid her hair, so I did. I made a halo around her head with the braid, and then I did it again as a snake starting at the top of her head and then zig-zagging down her head. I then did Anna’s hair like that. Afterwards, we decided it would look cooler if I did it from the two sides. So I started with two braids and then zig-zagged again. I did Anna’s too, and we called it the waterfall. It was highly entertaining and I must say it looked pretty cool. But alas, it was all practice for the victory party later that night. We made a bet with our SAT director that if our candidate won, we could dye and braid his beard. Well needless to say the canidate won…and we dyed and braided! It was really fun and, let me announce, Red food dye looks a lot like blood!

Okay well I guess I will leave it there. There were some other really fun stories, but I need to go read Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Prince and write 5 papers…and, well, I need to get going on that!

Emily

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Saturday—this word immediately speaks of joy, relaxation, and a break from classes. Indeed those are the first words that come to my mind. And this Saturday would be no different; at least, that is what I told myself at 9:00 in the morning as I climbed out of the warmth of my bed and onto the cold ground below. I sat down at my desk and opened up my computer. I had a lot of work to do today, and the best time to work on a Saturday is in the morning. I began reading Beowulf. About three pages in, I heard a shriek of excitement coming from outside the open window.

“It’s snowing!”

I jumped up from my desk and rushed to the window. Pulling the shades aside, I was met with a world of white flurrying snow. Giant snowflakes gently floated down, covering the green grass that still poked up from the thin layer of snow. I looked out for a few more seconds then knew I had to take action. It was snowing in October this was crazy! I quickly dug through my drawers and closet and found the warmest clothes I could—jeans, long-sleeved shirt, scarf, little gloves, socks, a jacket, and (here lies my biggest mistake) a pair of cloth ballet flat (chosen for the fact that they were already falling apart, so I couldn’t ruin them). Once I was ready, I ran downstairs and out the door, camera in hand. And so my Saturday began…not as a regular relaxing Saturday, but as an adventure full of excitement and…well…eventually…love poetry?

The moment I was outside, the frigid air hit upon my face, and flakes of snow began landing on my bare head, and casting white flecks on my black jacket. My toes were almost instantly wet and cold, but that didn’t really matter. I began walking. Most of the snow was still fresh and untrod upon. I walked around to the back of Founders and then ran through the snow. It was beautiful! I took some pictures and then began to go back. I took the little trail behind the back of the BHC so I could enjoy my walk a little longer. It was now that I began to realize that I couldn’t feel my feet, and the shoes I was wearing were falling off because they were so wet. I hurried back to the dorm, occasionally losing a shoe, and then ran upstairs and took off the shoes and socks to let my feet thaw. I didn’t have any snow boots, but I would have to wear my Ugg-like boots if I was going to go out there again. Even though they weren’t waterproof they would keep my feet somewhat warm. And of course I was planning on going out again.

My friend Mikey and I planned to go out into the snow a little later. I was dressed much warmer this time. We quickly decided it was time to build a snowman. After a little bit of work we were able to get three masses of snow stacked on top of each other. We looked at what was supposed to be the head.

“This is not round at all!” Mikey said with a laugh.

“Let’s try to pack snow in and make it more…snowman like.”

We did; it didn’t quite go as planned and one pack of snow ended up looking like an ear.

“Let’s make it a snow bear!” Mikey suggested.

“Okay, that will be awesome!”

So, we gave him another ear, some berries for buttons, and a broken shell of some sort, for eyes and a nose. The finishing touch on our bear was two leaves that made it look like he had a mustache. Once we were finished, we contemplated over what we should name him. We finally settled on Fredrico the Snow-bear. We took some pictures with him and then headed back to the warmth of our dorm and then off to lunch. After lunch, my roommates and I were productive, but then at four we found out about a snowball fight. My roommate Michelle and I grabbed our warmest clothes and headed out. For over an hour we trotted around the campus with a group of people, attacking random people passing by with snowballs, having a snowball revolution war, sliding down hills, slush sliding on sidewalks, tactical snow fights, attacking cars, making snow angels (okay…well I may have been the only person to do that), and a having free-for-all snow throw. It was quite wonderful! The group finally disbanded and we went to dinner. I decided against changing from my sopping wet clothes for some silly reason, so I was quite cold at dinner, but I didn’t really mind. Despite my shoes being soaked my feet were still warm!

The last excitement of the evening was a wing event at Abbey’s house. We were baking all sorts of goodies. We made brownies, chocolate chip cookies, ginger snaps, and muddy buddies. While baking we listened to Michael Buble, and other music in similar style. There was an “awkward laugh” session/training seminar, a little bit of dancing, and way too much sugar!  We decided from the kindness of our hearts that we would give some of our goodies to our brother wing, but they had to be packaged creatively. Someone came up with the brilliant idea of writing love poetry. So we sat down around the table and tried to come up with the sappiest things we could imagine and wrote them down into poetry. Once we finished, we drove back to campus and prepared the food and poetry. We sprayed perfume on the poetry and placed lip-prints on them. It was the sappiest, silliest, but cutest thing I think we could have done. Then we went over to the boys’ dorm, set all the goodness in front of their wing door, knocked, and then ran back to the elevator and back to the warmth of out dorm. We all felt content with our evening endeavors, so finally it was time for the day to be over and we went to bed!

Yesterday was quite possibly the most fun day I’ve ever had. I hope you enjoy this little narrative, and the pictures!

Emily