Today was huge.

Around 1:30pm the doorbell rang and a delightful FedEx man delivered me the pristine white Macbook that I am typing with this very moment. I spent a lovely (sunny, 65+º) afternoon moving everything over and setting everything up. The power cable takes a little wobbling to fully connect and the trackpad is set to a different sensitivity level than I’m used to, but I’m pretty darn pleased.

This afternoon Mom and Dad left work a little early and we all headed down to the Ernie Aiken baseball field to meet Grandma and (along with most of the rest of the city…cars packed in as far as the eye could see) watch the Astoria High School baseball team play (and win) the semifinal game of the state tournament. At the height of her high school baseball obsession, Mom is positively giddy. She’s not alone. Astoria’s baseball team has never even reached the semifinals before, let alone come down to the top two, and it’s stirring up something of a carnival atmosphere.

Sitting on a grassy hill in the warm sun, overlooking a great baseball game set against the backdrop of Young’s Bay, surrounded by throngs of excited, friendly people (many of whom I knew)…it felt like most of the reasons I love Astoria all rolled up into one afternoon.

I suppose there’s not much else to say. I could recount the weekend camping trip, but it was the typical soggy Memorial Day. It’s really only Mom’s friends who camp, anyway, we stay in yurts (way too dry to be considered camping). I suppose it could be considered “roughing it”, in that we have to go outside to cook as well as trek to the toilets. Eh.

Oh, I went over to Ryan’s last night and looked through all (and I mean ALL) of his pictures from Spain. It looked beautiful. After he filled me in (I spent most of the time trying to imagine the different feelings the photographs elicited for Ryan and myself and doubting my ability to understand anything) we went on a beautiful beach walk. It was such a clear night it was difficult to pull out constellations from the mass of stars. The Milky Way was especially bright, a giant blob of glowy light above the sand dunes. We took turns talking about ourselves and paused politely to absorb disjointed information (rather than flowing conversation). I think we both understand that speech is a selfish vehicle, but it is something we need. That understanding paired with his insightfulness and sincerity is why I enjoy Ryan’s company so dearly. He’ll be in Eugene this summer, though, along with everybody else on the face of the planet.

Yesterday I woke up at 8am and started packing. I wanted to run to the Sci Vis lab and finish the CS 203 project, but I couldn’t because there was a class in there. Very annoying. Instead I boxed things up and put them in the hall, ran around looking for tape, jumped on / screamed at my suitcases, and generally panicked. Erin’s parents came and we loaded up their van with my things, but I couldn’t even help them unload it (Margaret promised she’d do my share of the work and she is a marvelous beautiful person and my hero at the moment). I invested a few precious moments in furiously hugging Alex before he departed for an exam…the goofball is leaving for Paris for my ENTIRE senior year. With ten minutes to go before catching my 2pm shuttle I ran to the Sci Vis lab (literally, I’m sure the frisbee team laughed at my silly gait) and debriefed Alison on the work I’d done at 4am.

I owe Erin and Margaret (as well as Erin’s parents and Sarah) SO MUCH for helping me move out and bring my stuff to storage that morning. I cannot thank them enough. I need to bake them all cakes.

After so much running, the plunge into the sit-wait-move-sit-wait pace of the travel day was dizzying. I packed both my red bags to bulging and then carried on a massive hiking backpack laden with clothing-filled Nalgene bottles and camera lenses as well as a book-filled overnight bag.

Touching down into Portland on a clear night feels like floating into a brilliant jewel box: rows upon rows of solid and glimmering yellow-orange lights. After 10 hours of traveling spent imagining every possible flaw in the Middle Earth Battle Station (futile, since it was beyond my capacity to further influence) it felt so nice to just melt into the front seat of Dad’s car and be whisked home.

Not that home is so relaxing at the moment. I think everybody has been traumatized by all the arrangements for Grandpa Joe’s funeral, and the atmosphere is tired, unhappy, and frayed. I feel a little guilty for being excited to see everybody tomorrow, even though I know Grandpa would be excited to have the family together too. I am convinced that we will feel better when we are together, and it will be an elegant service.

I feel like class has been out for weeks. My days consist of waking up, sitting in front of my computer, eating with Alex, and continuing to work until I fall asleep around 3am. This has been happening since whenever we got out of school. Just today (or was it yesterday?) Seth informed me that we were still in school at the beginning of this week. I could’ve sworn we let out last week…

But looking back at the dates of my last post, he’s right. Of course. But how could time pass so slowly?!?

I am well aware that when things come up due I’ll wonder how the time slipped away so quickly, but it’s not like I’m procrastinating. I just finished the paper for Amitava’s class, and I’m unusually happy with it. It doesn’t read like an academic paper (it even has pictures) but I think it infuses a liberal perspective of war with at least a hint of originality. At least I hope it does.

I turned that in Thursday, so the last few days have been devoted soley to the text adventure game. I realize that I’m putting WAY more effort into it than a paper would have required (so far the code measures 1000+ lines, which equates to well over 25 pages…and it’s not nearly finished) but it’s new and different and I get to use my imagination. I only wish my laptop screen worked so I didn’t have to spend so many hours scrunched up on the floor (which is as far from the chairless desk as the cords reach).

I did take a break for a few hours today to drive Erin to a doctor’s appointment. I’m worried about her; she suffered from a terrible cough earlier this week and now has a pain in her chest. My biggest concern is that she doesn’t complain enough, and it’s very difficult to know what to do for her (which is probably the intent of her stubborn silence). Still, I’m sure there are little nice things we could be doing if we knew what they were.

There are happy things, too. On my way back from printing at the library I passed two shadowy figures engaged in an epic light saber death match in Noyes circle, complete with growls and vocal saber-humming. Also the alumni association provided us with free icecream bars in the Retreat at 10pm, an unexpected delight.

And now I’ve wasted 10 valuable minutes updating you all on study week insanity! I desperately need to vent my primal scream, but I don’t know if I can stay up until midnight on Tuesday since I have a 9am exam on Wednesday. I’m afraid that if my grades don’t reflect this life-draining quantity of effort, I may never be able to work again.

We had our last official day of classes today. Crazy, eh? Apparently I have a summer job working with the circuit court tech staff, revamping their webpage and leading workshops in WordPerfect and things of that sort. There might even be other state courts with budgets for freelance web work, so I’m going to contact them when I get home. I’ll be stuck in an office, but it’ll be a steady 8-5 with decent pay.

Alex received even better news today. He was awarded the fellowship to work on a dig in Scotland this summer! So he’s pretty set and we’re all pretty excited.

Alex, Joanna, and I watched the student choreography class performance this evening. On our way home we heard strains of jazz music floating down from the Villard Room in Main. We ran up to discover an enthusiastic band of older people calling themselves “Dr. Dubious and the Agnostics” and Alex and I stopped to dance a bit. The music was crazy fast and Alex outdanced me by quite a margin.

I have major things due every other day up to and including May 22nd, which is the day I fly out. It’ll be a little crazy, but I have a good head start on a lot of the work. The paper for Professor Kumar’s class is coming along nicely, I only have a few paragraphs left to polish and a couple images to set. I learned how to use InDesign to lay it all out, and Alex taught me how to compute a beautiful grid.

Also, the text adventure game I’m writing is AWESOME. I hope Lisa and Heesok enjoy it, I am trying not to get carried away. Ok, we’re going to watch a movie now. Hopefully the stupid foam party in Noyes Circle doesn’t get too loud, I’d like to sleep at some point.