For behold, darkness shall cover the earth.

We call it an eclipse, and it has singlehandedly saved more herioc storybook characters than any other natural phenomenon on the planet. But that has nothing to do with this. This is an 'I'm still alive' post. I'm still alive.

School has been going quite well. I'm getting away with what I hope is an A- average (or it will be when I get a certain exam back), everything looks tasty, and there is only one paper and two exams between me and a week of freedom. Freedom being a relative term, of course. Freedom to write an exegesis, read all of Macbeth, read almost all of Lord Jim, write a paper on Till We Have Faces, and get geared up for spending three days with the nun. All of which I plan to do using my clone, whilst I sleep.

Actually, I think I need a little bit of that now. I'm really writing odd things. Let me compose myself and try and say something normal...

composing.....


composing.....

Allright. Highlights of the semester so far have been varied and interesting. The most recent was my involvement in the Oktoberfest event on Saturday. That was grand fun--I ran all over the countryside, going to orchards, getting straw bales, buying and carting pumpkins about, wrapping crepe paper in the German national colors all over every pillar in sight, and just generally having a crazy busy time of it for about two weeks. Lots and lots of people were extremely helpful, though, (some more than others) and so it ended up going off without a visible hitch.

That sentence should be read to mean: Few if any of the people attending were aware of how narrowly we avoided having the entire event bomb, much less how often that narrowness happened.

Oktoberfest was fun. I got my toenail busted real good in the polka contest, which means I won the prize for "leaving most blood on dance floor" (just kidding), and all the professors were telling me that the event went well, and there was good beer I'm told, and all was hunky-dory. What a wierd word....wow. Anyway. Where was I?

Oh, yes. Another highlight had been going to Washington DC every Saturday to pray and counsel at the abortion clinic. We did not go this past saturday due to Oktoberfest, and I really missed it. The chance to get away and concentrate on the prayer and everything is nice, because its so easy to get distracted by school and things while on campus. I enjoy going, and I hope that the situation with our transportation (its a little shaky from week to week) gets itself all sorted out, especially since the winter months mean many fewer trips because of bad weather. Our chances to go are mainly in the fall and spring.

Yet another highlight was the recent rash of really rambunctious pranks we had going on. For example, a group of gentlemen arrived home one afternoon to find only the controllers missing from their Nintendo and Playstation systems. They're also missing a camoflauge suit, too, but I don't know if they've discovered it's absence. Then, there was the great pillow steal, and the great pillow return, and the great throw-the-head-ra's-furniture-out-the-window-on-a-school-night-because-you-can prank, and the steal-the-head-ra's-ties-and-give-them-to-everyone-to- wear-the-next-day prank, and the steal-darth-vader-and-put-him-at-the-podium-in-the-commons-for-breakfast-to-give-everyone-a-heart-attack prank, and many others. That was a good week.

Academically speaking, I can't tell you much. Having spent a year here now and become better able to see how the liberal arts system of education works, I have a little more insight. I now understand that having history, theology, philosophy, and political science all overlap in their course material is a good thing. Reinforcement, as it were, in addition to the obvious fact that you get all this really neat perspective on what you learn, be hearing about it from different angles. For example. we read Machiavelli for history the week before he got brought up in polysci, and now we all know what our philosophy and theology professors are talking about when he gets mentioned. Very cool stuff.

However, the cool stuff will have to be on hold till I get back on here to waste time. A paper wants writing (due next friday) and I've a test in literature in 44 hours.