Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Another Long Day, But Some Fun Surprises

by Scott Dalen

Every once in a while things come together in a way that is suprising. As I sit here, I have just glanced at the clock and I'm astonished to find that I've wrapped up my homework before 10pm. If you had asked me if that was a possiblity about 4 hours ago, I would have thought "never" but every once in awhile we are, in fact pleasantly surprised. But as I think about the evening, I also find myself reflecting on the day in general.

It began in the normal fashion, with me rolling over and looking at the clock much earlier than I would prefer, although in the very least I did make it till 6:30am before I woke up. IMPROVEMENT!!!

But after a few moments of laying there, knowing full well that I would not be getting back to sleep, I decided to get up and get moving for the day. After my normal morning rituals, I settled in to start the reading assignements that I knew I would need to finish for tomorrow, and I worked on that until breakfast time, when I hiked across to Olsen for my normal breakfast sandwich with Rick, my normal breakfast partner.

Side note, I might deviate from the Philly with cheddar tomorrow. I actually thought about it today, but wimped out. Perhaps tomorrow will be the day for change.

From there, we headed on out for another morning of RTA, and commenting that even by 8:15, there were a lot of people on campus for convocation. A big highlight this morning was chapel. As per usual (or at least compared to my one other experience with convocation) it was FULL. Listening to Mary Hinkle Shore's message was a great experience, and one that several of my classmates commented on. Also, sharing in the Lord's supper with several close friends is always a wonderful thing as well.

After chapel, I slowly milled around in Olson, scanning the crowd for anyone that I might know. I did spot one old friend, and then I happened to see a photographer positioned on the stairs taking shots of the crowd. A closer looked revealed a fellow Life at Luther blogger Amber, and I thought I would introduce myself.

We had a very brief conversation as I needed to get back to class, but the highlight was that Amber revealed that she had recognized me in the Caf yesterday, due to my orange hat. I was on my way out, so she didn't talk to me then, but to know that I have actually been recognized makes the blaze orange that much greater. Also, it seemed fitting as it was the presence of her camera that helped me recognize her. I guess that we need to be known for something right?

Class wrapped up for the morning, and several of us raided the leftovers that are hiding...somewhere...I'm not going to tell you where because I might try to raid them again tomorrow. From there we headed back across the parking lot for Church and Music. Fortunately, today is the last day this week when we have both morning and afternoon classes. I'm very thankful for this (as are many of my classmates) as three short nights in a row of little sleep is certainly catching up.

After class, several of us once again journeyed to the library for research purposes. One by one we each made our way into the stacks to try and locate our prospective texts. An interesting occurance, as I was standing towards the back end of the stacks, clear up on level 8, my friend Sarah came walking towards me, no doubt looking for a book. I had just found mine and my eye happened to catch a brightly colored....wait for it, yep...orange book about Gregorian chant. I grabbed the book to show her, thinking it was funny looking, and low and behold, that was the book she was looking for. I must have been experiencing a psychic moment, or the Holy Spirit just wanted to use me to save her 15 seconds of scanning through book numbers to find the right one. Either way, we got a laugh out of it.

Following our time in the library, we stopped by Olson yet again. This time for supper which was being put on for convocation. Very tasty caf workers...very tasty.

By this time, I was hitting the wall in terms of tiredness and was not looking forward to the large amount of homework that was waiting for me back in Stub. However, I thought it best to get to it, so I headed out a little ahead of my fellow cohorters and took the momentary oppurtunity to call my wife. I got voice mail, but she called me back a few minutes later and we had a good chat. This one was certainly better than the one that resulted from both of us being cranky last night. The really great news there, tomorrow afternoon she will be arriving on campus with the kids.

I GET TO SEE MY FAMILY TOMORROW!!!!

After the phone call, I knuckled down. I got through the reading and had started to write my paper, when I ran out of steam. I was thinking that a diversionary run to Mannings might be in order, but as I couldn't get anyone else geared up to go, I let that idea float off into oblivion, and I once again buckled in to finish up the paper.

Long story short...everything that I wanted to accomplish today has been accomplished, and praise the Lord, its not that late yet. Suppose I'll actually manage the same thing tomorrow?

We can only hope.

2 Comments:

Blogger Amber said...

Scott! What a joy to meet you! We should all get together for a "blogger" photo! I know Tim is out of the country...but maybe the rest of us! Your orange hat should probably be present too! :)

1/14/2010 01:42:00 PM  
Blogger Scott Dalen said...

I'm down with that...we could take a picture...that would be sweet

1/14/2010 03:03:00 PM  

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