"I write you letters. I don't know how to get them to you."

Dear Dad and Mom,
I have so much that I want to write about. I won't say "but this has to be brief", though, because whenever someone says that, they never end up being brief at all. (I wonder why that is?) I will start with the present: it is almost 5 in the evening here, and my stomach is rumbling. One of these days I will get back to a store and buy myself more tortilla chips and other late-night snacks, but for now, the best thing I've got to keep me going till meals is (you guessed it) coffee. There is a pot brewing now. Amazingly enough, I haven't yet gone through the supply that I bought on my first day here - but I fear that its end is coming soon. Yet another reason to go shopping. Also, FALL BREAK is in TWO WEEKS. Some people have plans to go to Honeyrock (a camp in Minnesota or some other forsaken place with which Wheaton is heavily involved), while some others plan to go home for the week. I have plans of my own: to wander and explore the downtowns of Wheaton and Chicago to my heart's content. And READING. So much reading. This is, day by day, beginning to sound more and more heavenly. Not to mention incredibly needed. The days and weeks go so fast - I can't believe we're almost halfway through the semester. Two nights ago I dreamt that I was home for Thanksgiving. While this plan is still up in the air (although to be honest, I must confess that I am heavily doubting its possibility or prudence at this point [alliterations! English majors!]), I thought that the dream was at least worth mentioning. In this dream, I was walking across the church parking lot with you and the rest of our family, heading toward the modular for our morning service. I was thinking of things to mention during "What I'm Thankful For" time. (Incidentally, I was going to say, "I'm thankful that I can be home.") Now, I had come back to California without telling anyone other than you guys; and while we were walking up the tree-covered path between buildings, I snuck up behind the Gilbertsons and tapped Jeannie on the shoulder. They both were so happy that they cried. Then Milt came up and hugged me, and asked if I wouldn't mind posing for a picture with Glenda after the service.

Well, speaking of church, I didn't go yesterday. Not on purpose, though. I've apparently gotten very good at turning off my alarm clock (this morning I woke up 15 minutes before a test), and yesterday I didn't wake up at all until close to noon. This was a rough week - we'll just put it that way. I'm thankful for the good amount of sleep, though - I feel better fortified to face this week. Even after today's Monday, I don't feel beat - whereas on last week's Monday, I felt beat from the moment I woke up. So yesterday was a rather abnormal day, but it was a good one. After breakfast I went over to a friend's apartment and read poetry and ate croissants with two other girls from Workout. Then I went to the reading room and sat in front of a huge fire (did I mention that yesterday was in the 40's?) and, with Dante, climbed out of Hell and into Purgatory. (It's all uphill from here, he tells me.) At 6:00 I returned to the apartment, this time with 8 or 9 others. We ate Chinese food and watched "Newsies" and had a rollicking good time. Near 10:00 I returned to my room and studied for this morning's French test (which I nearly slept through. AGH.). I don't think I did supremely well on that test, which is disappointing. But what can an English major do?

Let's see, working backwards.... Saturday was spent in the set-shop. I've grown to really adore Saturdays for that set-shop and its crew. By the time Fridays roll around my mind is in rebellion, claiming abuse; Saturday gives it a chance to relax a bit, and lets my more physical self be worked instead. Friday was full of classes, sleep-deprivation, caffeine, and French conversations. OH! Also, the college group from Bethel got together at somebody's house and spent the evening making pizzas and singing around a campfire. It was pretty glorious. A few of us girls made a Target run afterwards, but I didn't buy anything. I'm waiting for a time when someone can just drive me there and drop me off for say, three hours, while I work toward crossing things off of my "to buy" list. I had promised myself that I'd get into bed as soon as I got back to my room that night, but instead, one of my new friends came back to my room with me and we sat and talked for a few hours. I didn't sleep as much as I needed to that night - but I'm glad it happened the way it did.

Thursday. THURSDAYYYY. Well, everything was fairly normal until I got to Workout. I was feeling drained already by 4 in the afternoon (oh, haha, especially because I had been working all night and morning on a paper for my Lit class, and then when I went to turn it in, I couldn't get into my teacher's office! It all got sorted out eventually, but it was quite a process, which meant that I was late getting to the theater building. Which meant that I was drained AND stressed when I entered the room.). In fact, I didn't even want to be there at all; I was feeling too grouchy and emotional to be asked to do what we do in Workout. But as it happened, we didn't have Workout that day. We were all there - but half of the group was working on putting stamps and addresses on our seasonal-information mail, and since we were all going to a play that night, it would have been a short meeting anyway... so the director just canceled it. Which meant that we got to sit in the living room in our comfy Workout clothes and hang out for an hour. We then ate dinner together before our bus came. At 5:30 we boarded (all 55 of us), and it was a fabulous night. We saw Mary Zimmerman's "Metamorphosis" (which is based on Ovid, not Kafka). I don't really know what to say about it, other than that it was beautiful. Somehow I have to write a two page theater review on it tonight... but I have no idea how to do that. Some things you just can't put into technical terms. (The subject line of this email, by the way, is from "Eurydice"; hers was one of the stories told in the play, and this particular passage was read during yesterday afternoon's poetry reading. Eurydice's father, who is dead, writes her letters from the Underworld; he is one of the few there who still remembers how to read and write, but he can't let any of the others know, or they will dip him in the river of forgetfulness again. He concludes his letter by telling Eurydice, "I write you letters. I don't know how to get them to you." My heart broke.)

It is now after 5:00. I'm glad I didn't pretend that this letter was going to be brief. I have another class in about an hour and a half, but first I'm going to go get dinner "to go" from The Stupe so that I can eat and do homework at the same time. I have the review to write, some theater theory to read, and 13 cantos of Purgatory to traverse before I meet my bed tonight. I wanted to take this opportunity, though, to give you an update and let you know that everything is going well. I am still my silly self, and God is still His good and gracious self. I depend on each of these facts for my survival here.

I hope you're both well. Give my love to the wonderful folks at home for me; and tell the Gilbertsons that, were I to come home for Thanksgiving, they'd be the first to see me.

I'm glad that I can write you letters. I'm glad I know how to get them to you.
All my love,
Laura