Day 29: The luster has vanished

2/13 “Plenary, it starts with a P, you have to wake up..Early.” That’s the start of Renee and Alyssa’s awesome Plenary song, which we all love to sing especially when we’re dreading the lecture. Friday wasn’t super bad. They told us that they aimed to be done by 11 for chapel… We all knew immediately that they were being overly ambitious. Prof Stewart didn’t even start talking (after Dr. Wardwell) until 10:40. Ha. This session we talked half about the High Middle Ages, which was nice to define what exactly that period entailed, and half about the Renaissance, which was next week’s topic.

Much time elapsed, but finally Stewart finished the points on our outline, and it was time for chapel. This chapel was slightly different. It had more litany to it, and the focus was fittingly…Love. Haha. We read a lot of pertinent verses and recited several corporate prayers in between singing a variety of songs, from hymns to more contemporary songs. I really enjoyed chapel; I always get a lot out of it. It’s just a good time to stop, refocus, and take a break from the business of London life. I love having my Sabbaths on Sunday’s, but I really appreciate the community fellowship and rest in chapel as well.

Unfortunately, all good things come to an end eventually. We plodded back to the Highbury center and began to actually work on our papers today. And by actually work I mean, attempt to work. By attempt I mean, some of the time. Katie and I made good progress every once in a while. Somehow, we just weren’t motivated. It’s not like interesting things were distracting us this week either. We just didn’t really want to write this paper. Mostly, I didn’t understand the topic, which was very frustrating when trying to make a thesis. My goal was to have one by dinner. I threw that out the window very quickly. What really happened the entire afternoon was Katie and I went through our notes and asked questions about architecture or paintings every so often, and in between those questions we made observations about people who walked by our room (based on their discussions in the hallway tehee) and made predictions about people’s behaviors, and debated the motivations behind our friend’s actions, and you know..all the things an honors student debates. To prove that point I shall clarify that we are not alone, but not until it comes chronologically in my tale—which occurs after story time. So anyways, Katie and I enjoyed our afternoon of observations and some pretense of work.

I had an embarrassing moment this afternoon too. With 20 minutes left until dinner I decided to go question Daniel about his thoughts on the topic. I happened to brush my hair before I walked out of the room (which still astonishes the guys), and so as I rounded the corner I glanced backwards into the full length mirror to make sure my hair looked alright, and then proceeded to spend a moment checking my attire and whatnot—typical girl stuff. However, to my chagrin I turned around to see the couch at the end of the hallway, where Daniel was sitting, chuckling quietly at my preening. It might not have been that embarrassing, but I was mortified and turned Scarlett. I could hardly convey that he’d been the one I was looking for, and so instead I just sat down next to him and laughed until I could speak again. (The next time I passed that mirror when he was around, I didn’t dare look, though he laughed at me regardless). Oh my. Anyways, I discovered after I recovered from my embarrassment that he had little to no idea about the topic either, and we left the conversation that way as the dinner bell clanked.

“I don’t have a thesis, but I doo love Je-sus, empty thoughts fill my mind, evidence I cannot find, procrastination has taken over…” (That’s the second song from Renee and Alyssa’s London album, a personal favorite)

To our luck Dr. Stewart made a stop into the Highbury over dinner to make an announcement, and after slight debate Daniel and I raced out of the dining room after him when he left. We caught him on the stairs and had an informative conversation about the nature of our question. He made some great jokes about salad and food, which made their way eventually into Daniel’s title, and eventually got us to the point where we felt like we could abandon our shepherd’s pie to go write theses.

Soon enough we finished our meals and went to do just that. I made a rough rough outline of my thesis after dinner (the only thesis that I’ve changed after initially writing). I chose to take my thesis in a direction, though Dr. Stewart indicated that we didn’t really have to make any bold statements with this topic. I didn’t feel right about making an ambiguous thesis, which didn’t take a stand. I didn’t know what else I’d have to back up if I allowed every gamut of possibilities in my assertion.

I stopped for the last installment of Holes, and for the final clue to our next book, which Brad aptly solved in a timely manner. Impressive. The clue was the first letters of the first sentence of the book, “A B E O G U.” Although by that point we all knew the book, we still didn’t know the title that quickly.

Immediately following story time, a group of us were standing in the hall when we heard a crash and then a commotion from a nearby room. Of course all our interests’ were peaked, and all of us knew who had made the clamor, but not completely the reasoning behind it. Katie and I made no move, but Renee, Alyssa, and Nathalie turned to us and Renee cried, “ladies, in in in” as we were all herded into my room. As soon as the door shut, our voices all began to fly all voicing the same observations about a boy’s crush in our group. Twas very humorous that all of us had come to the exact same conclusions and that most of the group was intently watching the actions of this young man, and young woman, and more likely of everyone. We are truly stereotypical observers.

After laughing loudly enough that the TA’s poked in to quiet us, we all determined that maybe we should depart ways to continue working on our theses. Although, Renee did pop her head in several more times throughout the night, and throughout Saturday (which was wonderfully welcomed by us!) to both distract and to discuss paper topics.

Finally at long last I began to make progress and nailed down a thesis (that was more than 9…or rather 24 words) and I eventually morphed that statement into a three sentence introduction/thesis. However, I’d been asking Daniel and David for their opinions on the theses over the course of the afternoon, and when I went to ask for help on my final thesis, I found that they weren’t in their rooms. Confused I stood at the top of the stairs and overheard singing from Danny’s room. Even more confused I listened in wonder to their beautiful music (Daniel was singing the melody at this point), and it was only after 2 or 3 minutes that the realization dawned on me that I should really NOT be up on the third floor right at that very moment. I quickly snuck into David’s room, left a note and then ran back to my room. I did, for the record, keep the secret and didn’t tell Katie what’d I’d run into up there, only that we should stay downstairs for the rest of the night. A little after one David, then after him Daniel, came downstairs to discuss theses, topics, and the like. It was an enjoyable parade of visitors all evening, and by the time I went to bed at 1:30 I felt like I could make it through my paper the next day. Slowly, (since I only had 4 sentences written) but surely.