I have had a fun, incredible, crazy past two weeks. This Thanksgiving holiday I have eaten 7 consecutive Turkey dinners, spent 20 hours in front of a projector screen, played card games in excess of 10 hours, prayed for good weather and gotten snow, written 2 papers for classes and another 2 pages of my story, played football with young kids, and lost my sense of taste for 3 and a half days.
We start with last Friday. Of course, it was the end of the last full week before Thanksgiving and it is acknowledged universally among college students that shortened weeks mean that nothing will be done and can just as easily be brushed aside. That’s not what I did, but I had no intentions of really taking the two class days before Thanksgiving too seriously.
Friday, I organized a “couch warming” party because that Tuesday we’d gotten our new furniture delivered. It’s so nice to have seating again, even if it isn’t downstairs anymore! We watched “Oklahoma” from our comfortable couches in our new family room. The group was small, but cozy and I think we all enjoyed ourselves.
Saturday is a bit of an anomally. I can’t recall much of what I did, mostly because I can’t remember if I had to work that day or not. It was the day of the leadership retreat at church, though I didn’t have to go, and there was no Husker game to listen to. Somehow, I occupied myself, but the specifics are lost amid my memory of all that followed.
Sunday- Church, Life Group, and coming home. “Luther” was playing on the big screen that I must have helped set up on Saturday, among other things. I watched for about an hourish before hastening off to work. Here is where I discovered I didn’t have to work at all that week, since the dining center was closing before the evening meal on Tuesday.
Monday- I went to classes and finished watching the parts of “Luther” I’d missed. I wrote a bit of my book and figured out some other things that had to do with that. I went back to campus, unsure if my bible study was actually meeting. Thank goodness it actually was. Then the fun really begins!
Tuesday- I had two classes back to back and went home, glad that I didn’t have to work. I wrote for a while and waiting for the young ones to return home from school. Grace and I had agreed to watch FotR that day and we were very keen to start it right away.
Wednesday- I had the house practically to myself, since the high schoolers were still in school. There were no church functions that night due to Thanksgiving and the agenda for the night was watching “Kung Fu Panda”
THursday- I started a period of seven straight thanksgiving meals, two of which were on Thursday. First, I ate lunch with just the family, then I believe we watched the rest of FotR. Supper that night included my uncle and his three generations of clan, as well as Casandra. We played Dance Praise, or rather they did, amid talking with the relatives we hadn’t seen in a while.
Friday- Grace and I watched TTT before the Husker game. Food that entire day was leftovers from the day before, thus what could be considered a single thanksgiving meal that spanned the whole day, or two meals separated by a Husker win:)! After the game, many played card games or dominos (Mexican Train)
Saturday- Cook Clan Convention (:D) at Martha-maba’s in Norfolk and two more Turkey Day meals. Before we left for the “Convention”, I burned my tongue on coffee, or that’s what I assume, causing my taste bids to be awol until Tuesday evening. At Martha’s, I played cards, ate, played more cards, played football with my young cousins designing an offensive scheme that involved all of my teammates, won at pinch having taken all ten points in the final round, ate some more, and watched the beginning of the OU-OSU game, before pushing off for home thoroughly exhausted, having enjoyed myself considerably.
Sunday- Already by now, I’ve had six consecutive Turkey meals and now can’t taste anything except a very little bit. Even the salty and vinegary taste of my mom’s three bean salad was lost to my sensations of taste. Church was having a Thanksgiving meal after the service and I was participating, thus a seventh Turkey meal. After all was done at church, I played cardgames of various sorts all afternoon. Grace, Casandra, and I went on a walk in the cold weather to end the day.
Monday-Schooltime again. Grace and I watched the first disc of RotK, and I went to my bible study, the last official study of the semester. There, I prayed that a day nice enough to actually go fora walk would come. I believe everyone knows that a prayer like that in early December is like praying for rain on the moon. Yet it came the next day.
Unfortunately, the next day was a Tuesday, the day I traditionally have no time whatsoever. To crunch my time even more, I had class material to read for a paper that was due today (Friday the 5th). So while it was a nice day outside, I had to remain indoors on campus reading about the Zionist movement of the early 20th century, work for five and a half hours, getting cut up in the process, and bike home just in time to fall asleep and start a day all over again. The only good thing that happened that evening was I got my taste back in time to savor the mixure of flavors of soups at the soup bar we served.
Wednesday, I wrote a 5 page paper on the material I’d read and sawed up derby cars for Royal Rangers. I woke up that morning with a shoulder that hurt really bad, but the pain was ignored as I biked to school with backpack forcing it backward. the nice weather I prayed for and hoped to enjoy for another day was gone when I woke and ice was left in its place. Ever a glass half full sort of guy, I remembered the times I rode through the snow to and from McDonalds, blazing through the foot deep drifts.
Thursday, I read 200 pages in 4.5 hours and wrote a response to it. A two page double-spaces essay is a why bother and the length guaruntees that whether or not you might have something to say about the topic in question, you haven’t the space to speak clearly and back it up with examples, as every good argumentative essay should.
That brings us to today. Hours 21 and 22 will be spent in front of the projector, taking in the last disc of RotK. Those two papers were handed in and evaluations taken. I delivered a narative of my past two weeks as I promised and now will stop to rest and recoup before another weekend crazy in its own elaborations unfolds.
JA Menter
