a vestige of thought...

This morning we woke up at the ungodly (for spring break) hour of 7:30 in the morning, dressed in many layers, and loaded up Courtney's car for the hour and a half drive to Mystic, CT (most famous as a fishing port from a long time ago and/or the setting of the movie Mystic Pizza). Upon arriving, we spent most of the day at the Mystic Seaport museum (mostly closed for the winter, but with enough stuff open to be fun). The museum had a bunch of ships and houses and such that were intended to recreate a 19th century seaport village. (See photos below.) For lunch we attempted to eat at the little cafe at the seaport but were told that the clam chowder was still frozen and that if we wanted some she could put it in the microwave. Uh-huh. Instead we walked 10 minutes to downtown Mystic and ate at a wonderful restaurant which, I believe, was called The Riverfront (although I'm pretty sure that big body of water we saw was not a river...)


Welcome to Mystic Seaport


This is Heather being seaweed caught in the anchor...


I think I was born to be a sailor


Courtney overboard!


There are no words...


A whaling ship


Us in the bowels of the whaling ship.


"Is this where they put all the bad kids?"

A long time ago in a dorm room somewhere it was first speculated, "Hey, we could go up to Courtney's house for spring break and sight see around New England." Somehow, many months and hours of planning (and driving) later, five of us (Courtney, Heather, Karissa, Sam, and myself) are actually here, in Suffield, Connecticut, at Courtney's house. Wow. We left Wilmore at exactly 12:30 Friday afternoon and drove eight hours (with only one stop for gas) to someplace in the middle of PA where we spent the night at Courtney's friend Jessica's house. The only person home was Jess's dad, but he cooked up amazing sloppy Joes with mac 'n' cheese for dinner and then some even more amazing oatmeal pancakes for breakfast. We stayed in a little apartment that they have over their garage with a little kitchen, bathroom, a double bed, a couch bed, and a cot. It was so much nicer than any of us expected and needless to say we were all incredibly grateful!

Saturday we drove another 8.5 hours or so and finally arrived at Courtney's house. We had another fantastic home-cooked meal (spaghetti and meatballs) and watched Meet the Robinsons. Heather and Court have been quoting that movie for weeks. It was great to finally see it. This morning we went to Courtney's church and then stopped at Mark Twain's house for a tour on the way back. It was pretty cool, although Heather and Karissa were definitely the most excited.


Four of us on the couch bed overnight in PA


Myself and my roommate


"Oh my gosh, we're going to Mark Twain's house!"


Us, in front of Mark Twain's house


The house itself

Let us begin with good news: My roommate, who has been working her tail off since September on a proposal for an Asbury Initiative Grant, got word today that indeed got her grant and will be spending 8 weeks this summer in South Africa. Woot! I'm so proud of you, Sami!

Then we shall continue to news of me, which I suppose is good, although not as exciting as Sam's. I am currently serving as the Unashamed class female chaplain. I love pretty much every bit of that job. Yet, when looking at my opportunities for campus involvement next year, I somehow decided that I wasn't going to run for chaplain again. I don't know why I decided this. However, a few weeks ago one of my fellow cabinet members asked me if I was going to run again. I opened my mouth to say 'no', but what came out was, "I think I need to pray about that." I stopped and thought, Huh. Maybe I ought to pray about that. So I did, and after a couple of weeks of prayer I feel that yes, I should run for class chaplain again. Whether or not I get the position will be in God's hands, but I feel a peace about applying for chaplain that I haven't had about anything else I've looked into for next year. That's exciting.

Secondly, my hair dryer gave up on life about a week and a half ago. It just stopped working. I happened to be going home last weekend, so I took the dryer with me and asked my amazing, handy-dandy father to take a look at it. He did some sort of miracle hair dryer surgery and made it work again. Or rather, he made it work when he turned it on. For whatever reason it still wouldn't work when I tried to use it when I got back to school. After borrowing hair dryers for a week, I gave a friend some money and asked her to pick me up a new dryer from Walmart this afternoon. She found me a cheap but wonderfully functioning hair dryer for a mere $11.10 (including tax). I opened it and plugged it in to make sure it worked. It did. Then I decided to try my old hair dryer before I threw it away, just for good measure. It worked too. In fact, I can't get it to not work. Apparently it just wanted a friend. Now I can't return the new hair dryer because I already opened it, and I don't want to throw away my old hair dryer because it still works. I guess I'll just hold on to the new one as a back up. I'm already feeling sort of attached...

Altoids