Toiling On, Toiling On...

            …and labor till the Christmas Break. Sorry, Winter Break. We also have Winter trees and Winter wreaths around campus. And many of us are looking forward to going home for Winter so as to tell Winter stories and eat Winter dinner with the Winter log on the hearth.

            Okay, enough of that. In case you were wondering, classes ended here last Wednesday, as did ROTC, and now everyone is having a good time/studying for the approaching finals. I did finish my projects (they were due yesterday) and so have my time free to study for finals, when I can bring myself to once again write about the material.

            Most of my time this past week, though, has been spent being sick. When I get all stuffed up, it’s usually just allergies or a minor thing – I very rarely get fevers. I remember always having a runny nose and clogged throat and still being able to go to school. And I don’t want to be the sort of person who makes illnesses up to get out of things, so I put down my temperature fluctuations to the contrast between the heater’s steaming hot air and the chilly temperatures outside.

            And eventually, when I spent an incredibly horrible night on Friday and the fever finally broke, I admitted I had one. Due to some very good council from my dad and some friends, I was already planning on taking Saturday off, and I think it helped. But there’s less than a week before my finals, and it’s time to get cracking again.

            If I wax more loquacious than usual, it’s because I’ve been reading a Victorian-era novel. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the word “peccadillo” used so casually – hearkens back to my SAT-studying days. The book is “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall”, and it’s good, as long as you don’t expect it to be overly cheery.

            I’m combining this reading with listening to the radio more than I have in a while and, bit by bit, convincing myself to study for finals. One of them is Calculus, and the other two consist of several Essays/Short Answers. No notes. Which means a lot of research and a lot of memorization in a very short period of time. Any of you who wrote practice essays for either AP History test will probably understand this.

So lately I’ve spent most of my time inside, studying and reading, excluding the half-hour walk to church and then the return trip yesterday. The theme outside, as you can see from the pictures below, is cold. It wasn’t too bad yesterday – you just have to be careful of ice disguising itself as puddles. But today I woke up – or was woken up by someone’s very loud banging – to find it was snowing. Or had been snowing. I believe it’s now somewhere between raining and sleeting. I, for one, plan on staying inside as much as possible, though I did slip down for a few pictures and, of course, breakfast.

And at church we’re lighting the advent candles! Carols are being sung! And perhaps because where I come from it only appears in movies, in the snow there’s the feeling of – well – Winter, if you know what I mean. But at the moment, I have to go to a review session, and it takes a while to get layered up again – I am wearing my snow boots today, for the first time since I visited Boston last February. So enjoy the pictures, good luck to everyone who’s also finishing up the semester, and I hope you have a wonderful vacation!

PS – I will write another post next week and then sign off until we come back for next semester. So tune in one more time this calendar year! Also, I forgot to thank my dad for the pictures of me and the fireplace in the last post, so thank you!