Live and Archived

    The last several weeks have been a little overwhelming.  Between my four classes and Glee Club, there seems to always be a test or paper or project or concert every week, sometimes two in one week.  The projects and tests are not particularly interesting to talk about, but the concerts may be a little more interesting to you.  For one, we performed Brahms’s Ein Deutches Requiem once again, this time in downtown Chicago at the Symphony Center, and the previous performance in Edman Chapel (on Wheaton’s campus last November) is now online: http://www.wheaton.edu/wetn/conservarchive.htm (November 20).  Also, our spring concert will be this Friday at 8:00 (6:00 AZ time).  The performance should be broadcast live, so if you want to watch it or part of it you can go to http://www.wheaton.edu/wetn and click the watch live link.  It should be a fun concert.  We have a really wide variety of songs in Glee Club.  We performed two in chapel today.

    I wanted to put some sort of picture in here, but this is the only one that I have taken recently.  This is Ryan Bilton carrying Josh Hershberger and Sam Cortez, and Bryce Walpus is touching Sam’s head.  A few comments.  Sam is going to be one of my roommates next year, Lord wiling.  In our last raid, Ryan played a significant role, and one of the other guys on our floor sang the song “Gaston” from Beauty and the Beast, replacing the word Gaston with Bilton. I also have been reading a few Father Brown stories for a reading group at the Wade Center, in one of them, detective Valentin mentions a caper of the extremely brilliant and athletic master criminal Flambeau in which he carried two policemen down the street, one under each arm.

    It snowed today….  Everyone here feels as if spring has betrayed us.  We had two weeks of very nice weather, then this afternoon, it got a bit chilly, just enough for me to contemplate wearing a sweater.  Then when I looked out the window a few hours later the snow had returned.  I don’t think any more than an inch fell, but it’s the principle of the matter.  The last remnants of winters hold on our campus had begun to disappear, the former eight foot mounds of snow had been reduced to tiny piles a few inches in diameter and then completely obliterated, but now reinforcements have come, and we must brace ourselves for one more skirmish against this foe.  We must keep our fleece armor at the ready and our heaters vigilant.

From the front lines,

Daniel Flavin

Homesick

    I’ve never entirely understood what the word “homesick” meant.  When I was younger, sickness meant a mixture of physical discomforts and disabilities.  It meant running noses, headaches, soreness, exhaustion, etc.  I still think of sickness in a similar way, but when I was younger I could not imagine how not being in a certain place could make someone feel physically sick.  I do remember missing home while on vacation and wondering if that was homesickness.  That may have been why I had trouble understanding homesickness: I had experienced sickness and I had experienced missing home, but in my experience there was very little connection between them.  In the time since then, both ideas have grown closer to each other.  As a child, when I was sick I don’t particularly remember longing to be well.  More recently, when I am sick I spend a significant portion of my time remembering what it felt like to be well and wishing I could be well.

    Sometimes in class, sometimes in a conversation, and sometimes walking across campus, I have had a sudden, vivid memory of a particular location.  The odd thing about it is that most of the time, it isn’t “home.”  It is not necessarily my room or my house or even a place that I would list as one of particular significance or emotional attachment.  It may be Freestone Park, the parking lot of Sam’s Club or Fiesta mall.  Somehow, even though that place does not seem to hold any particular meaning to me, I feel an intense longing to be there, not to do anything particular there, merely to be there.  You might say that this is merely my sub-conscious telling me to go somewhere warmer.  That may be part of it.  (As a side note, I have learned a few things about cold weather.  One: it is not hard to freeze hair, just walk outside with slightly damp hair and wait fifteen seconds.  Two: hoodies and beanies were not invented just to look cool.  Three: there are two ways to get rid of a farmer’s tan.)  But there's something about those familiar places that is comfortable and inviting.  Even though Wheaton is more comfortable than it used to be, it does not have the same level of memories and emotional attachment that places in Arizona do.  

Snow Day!!!

    In general Wheaton does not have snow days.  Normally, they just work extra hard to keep the sidewalks and roads clear enough for everyone to get to class.  However, Tuesday and Wednesday, classes were cancelled and campus was closed due to a blizzard.  The Wade Center closed at three today,, so I left an hour early and on the way back the wind blew the snow so fast and hard that it felt like a sand blaster blowing in my face.  Kody, my heavily bearded suitemate is on snow crew, so as he was outside shoveling, his beard became thickly coated in snow and ice, so that according to his roommate Jonathan, he looked like Santa Claus with a white beard.  Yesterday, some of my friends and I dug a tunnel in a snow bank, and then sprinted across a field of three foot deep snow, then started tackling each other into soft cushions of snow, then went inside because we were freezing.

    I’m still pretty swamped in homework, but I did want to share a few pictures with you.I posted a before, during and after photo.  Enjoy!

Can You Read Fox in Socks? Seriously.

    About two minutes ago my suitemate Jonathan walked in and told me to look at Yahoo.com’s front page.  On the headlines, he clicked on the video on the right.  Once you watch the video, you’ll realize why I was particularly excited.  This is Xin Yan, from 4 South (my sister floor) reading Fox in Socks.  She came in first place in the Wheaton talent show last fall.  I know th

Wheaton Talent Show 2010 winner, Xin Yang’s Fox in Socks

at you are thinking, “I can read Fox in Socks, but I didn’t win the Wheaton talent show and get a headline on Yahoo.  What’s so special about being able to read a kids book, even one that has a few tongue twisters?”  At least I was asking that question when I saw “Xin Yan reading Fox in Socks” in the program.  Once you watch the video, you’ll see why she won the talent show.

  

Physics

    I meant to add this video to the last post.  This is an improved, edited video of the Rube Goldberg final project I did with Melody (my lab partner).  Pardon the distracting effect in the last clip.  I was having a little too much fun with the new version of Windows Movie Maker, and it was late at night.

Éire

    When I think back to my classes last semester, a few common themes come to mind.  One is the idea of shalom.  Shalom means peace, but it means a deep state of goodness and correctness, that all is as it should be. Of course shalom is always mixed with other things in a fallen world, but that’s another story.  Another recurring theme was Sabbath, taking time that is set apart.  I won’t explain how these ideas fit into Microeconomics and Gospel, Church, and Culture here, but I was thinking about how Dr. Walters talked applied them in Wellness.  He said that our bodies need rhythms, consistent cycles maximize efficiency while minimizing stresses.  I don’t think I can explain it very well, but the point is that we all need rest sometimes.

    After school ended, and I had finished all my final exams, I flew to Ireland with Dad where we met Andrew, who was finishing up the last few days of his internship.  After we spent a few days exploring Dublin, my grandparents flew out with mom and the girls to meet us.  Just before they arrived, it started snowing.  Dad and I were on O’Connell street, a central street in Dublin’s shopping district, when huge fluffy flakes of snow started falling.  I have told people that I think they are more like miniature snowballs than snowflakes.  I think it’s fun to catch them on the back of my hand and watch them melt.  The snow quickly covered the streets, and in a few hours Dublin was coated in a thick layer of white.  Due to snow covered streets and holiday hours, most of Dublin was shut down, there was hardly any traffic, so we spent about a week seeing Dublin in an unusual snow covered state.  Apparently, snow is very unusual in Ireland.  The snow remained on the streets until it melted, so many people who regularly commuted into Dublin in their cars began taking public transportation and walking.  I found it humorous that native Dubliners started asking us for directions.  Fortunately, since we had been in the area for awhile, we were able to help them.

    After about a week all together in Dublin, we rented a car and drove up to Belfast in Northern Ireland.  I should mention that when I say a car, I mean a Renault Trafíc.  I should also mention that the only other cars that we saw that were near its size were commercial and government vehicles.   When we drove on the narrow curved roads (with 100 km/hr speed limits) near the coast we found out one reason why there weren’t a lot of big cars on the road.  On the other hand, we did have to squeeze past some large charter busses on those narrow coastal routes.  At one point (later on in southern Ireland) as we swerved to avoid a cone, the cars front left tyre went over the edge of the road and we were pulled into some mud on the side of the road.  Unfortunately, Trafícs don’t have four-wheel drive and we could not quite get out of the mud.  Almost as soon as we clicked the hazard lights on, a several cars pulled off ahead of us, and a group of men ranging from about 25 to 55 got out of their cars to see if they could help.  After a few minutes we got the impression that they all knew each other.  In fact after they pulled it out with a rope and a Cherokee, the ring leader came over and gave us some warnings and directions about the construction ahead, we noticed them all standing in a circle on the side of the road still talking as we drove off.

    I think Belfast was my favorite part of Ireland.  I really appreciated the history and personality of the city.  It has been a fishing town, then a shipbuilding town.  In fact, the Titanic was built there and I think the Lucitania as well.  In one shop we saw a t-shirt that showed a picture of the Titanic with the caption “Built by Irishmen, sunk by an Englishman.”  If you know much Irish history, you know that Belfast has been the center of an age old struggle between loyalty to England and a desire for independence ever since southern Ireland separated from England to form the Republic of Ireland.  Belfast’s dark memories are preserved in its sometimes intimidating political murals, it’s “peace walls” and battle scarred buildings.  It’s industrial district stands mainly abandoned with giant ship building cranes that were hardly ever used.  A new museum is being constructed for the 100th anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking in 2012, and Belfast’s downtown area is very nice and urbanized in a classic European way, which shows the way Belfast is rapidly recovering from its troubled days.

    I might write about our last week in the south of Ireland some other time but I think this post is long enough already.  I do wish I could have seen all of you over break.  But since I couldn’t say it in person, Happy New Year to you all.  May your days be merry and bright, and may the God of hope fill you with joy and peace as you trust in Him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Musica

Unfortunately, David (a.k.a. anonymous in the December 5, 5:55 comment) is right.  The Rube Goldberg idea does take a lot more time than I expected it to, so I’m going to make this post quick, but there are two things I wanted to mention. First, if you missed the Christmas concert (David) it’s been posted in the conservatory archives now http://www.wheaton.edu/wetn/conservarchive.htm. I also thought you might be interested to know that every night at midnight, a group of friends of mine goes outside to Fischer lawn (in front of my dorm) stands in a circle and sings. We start with a song that they sing at HoneyRock called “Let Us Adore” then we sing whatever song we feel like, and we end with the doxology. I join them whenever I happen to be up at midnight (which is pretty often). It’s really simple but very good way to end the day.