The Feast 2: Teusday

After only a little while of wandering around the CC (Confusing Campus), Paul and Andrew and Susan and I found our apartment. We walked in, and were seriously floored. The place had a bottom floor with a spacious living room, cable TV, a better kitchen than either of our families had, a bedroom and a passable bathroom/shower. It also had an upstairs with three more bedrroms! The on I was assigned even had two beds (I imagined a Harpo-ish skit, where I arranged one bed and then went to sleep on the other). We think we had our odd male/female ratio to thank for this, as these were probably the most sensible rooms for a mother with three children. ;-)

After settling in a bit, and taking showers to wash off what was for me twenty-seven hours' worth of car/bus riding, we set out in search of some food, any food. In our wanderings (they were pretty much random at this point) we ran across Aaron, Heidi, and Tarja. We did a bit of breif introducing, then Aaron directed us toward a hope of food. We ended up in Worner. I bought and ate a fruit cup; I thought I wasn't very hungry, but I think I had a touch of altitude sickness.

At Worner, we ran into Heidi and Aaron and Tarja again, as well as Agent Delta. The group of us stood around talking for a while. Aaron assigned Paul to kill me with his big giant glass Sobe bottle (he FAILED, thank you very very much). After a while, some people had to go off to choir practice. Those of us with bad singing voices and/or little courage wandered around Worner, still talking. Then we went to chapel.

As Rachel E said later that day, "It's worth coming just for Divine Service." And it was. The service was traditional, confessional; beautifully done. The choir sounded amazing (Even with Aaron in it ;-)), the preaching was dead-on, the liturgy was what liturgy is supposed to be; yet none of it glorified the people involved. All the praise, the ceremony, the teaching, and of course the Lord's Supper, was about God coming to us through His Word and Sacraments. I never cry in church. I don't know why, I just don't. But I very nearly did at this service.

After church I just barely kept up with Paul as he threaded through the crowd at breakneck speed, taking secret passageways through the gym building to be front and center for Rev. Bender's Catechism session. So yes, if you saw a brown-haired kid acting goofy because the camera on Bender included him in its shot, that was Paul. :-D

Bender was great. He's a great speaker and a great teacher, and, as usual with HT speakers, both easy to follow and challenging.

After that, Paul and I hung around outside Worner, waiting for our time to go to supper. We, ahem, fenced (using our conference books) and acted generally insane and somewhat hyper. Several groups approached, looked at us breifly, and left in a hurry. :-D

We went in to supper, in the cafeteria. The cafeteria food, in general, was good, if not great. Sometimes I thought it made me sick when I looked at it, but I think this was again because of slight altitude sickness making me not want to eat. Midway through the meal we realized we didn;t know which sectionals we were going to, so discussion began in earnest. Aaron and I ended up deciding to attend "Ask the Pastor" together. Little did we know what we were in for.

It was held in Olin, which was apparently the one building Aaron did not know the location of, even after three weeks on-campus previously. So we frantically studied the big map outside Worner, and our maps, and determined a general heading. Aaron, his brother Nathan and I set off. We crossed the street and were heading for a likely building when Aaron looked at a passing group and recognition creased his face.

Aaron: I see a Rachel! Wait, two Rachels.

Nathan: HEY RACHEL!

*Rachels look up, startled*

*Ethan, Aaron and Rachel E and Rachel D meet and talk.*

Aaron: Llamas taste good.

Rachel E: They do! I've tasted some!

Aaron: *A rare moment of shocked silence*

Rachel E: I hug all MHers! *She hugs all MHers present*

*The two groups are forced, due to time constraints, to part*

The three of us coninued toward the building we were heading for. Entering, we found it empty and silent. Another study of the map gave us a new heading, and finally we found a building labeled Olin. No, two buildings labeled Olin, and no indication of which one we wanted. We went all through one, then the other, to no avail. Returning to the first, I suddenly heard a voice. Following said voice, we came to a door seemingly placed so as to fool outsiders to its existence. Though we arrived ten minutes late, the session was just starting. It was good, I was able to ask a couple questions I would have gone to other sessions to learn about, thus helping narrow down my choices for some other sessions (from, say, four to three).

Then we went to Plenary Session. Paul and I later found we liked to gipe about these sessions, as the speaker was more of a stand-up comic and not so challenging. But they were fun times to chill with a bunch of MHers. (Wow, did I just use the word 'chill'? Scary.)

Then came my favorite sectional, Pr. Borghardt's "The Law, the Gospel, and What to do With the Rest of My Life." I'm not sure whether this was because of Pr. B's hilarious style, his great teaching, or the fact that many/most of the MHers attended this one, so (as Heidi says) "We had our own seating section." Probably all three. :-D

Next was evening prayer (and I would like to remark here that even the HT 'short' services are very well-done).

Then a bunch of us rendezvoused and headed over to Worner and began playing a card game which Heidi brought/taught. I quite liked it, but too many people were tired and left (I couldn't exactly fathom this. I mean, I was quite tired at this point, but I knew my body wouldn't sleep, ESPECIALLY knowing that there were MHers roaming around loose). We switched games, and began playing slaps, Egyptian rat trap, Egyptian rat screw, and rat slap (all at the same time). ;-) Btw, Aaron's class ring is a weapon. I don't care what anybody says.

After a while it was time for Compline. We attempted to figure out which building we were supposed to go to. We didn't know when we left Worner, but finally figured out where some of us were supposed to be, and all decided to go there.

(I beleive it was determined much later that we were all in the proper place save Aaron, who technically should have been at Loomis, which had its own compline. Ah well. N trespassed, as usual. :-D)

After saying goodnight, I wandered around a while until I found my dorm (I swear, there were three or four buildings that looked EXACTLY the same, and mine was one of them.)

Upon arriving, pretty much everybody I stayed with went straight to bed. I did too, but couldn't sleep. I turned on the clock-radio in my room, and found a station playing those really old radio dramas with lines like:

"Detective, what are you feeling?"
"Well, I've got an expression of shock and concern on my face, what do you think?"

Thus ended Teusday (at one o'clock Wednesday).


(EDIT: Card games at Worner, not Olin. Thanks alot, Aaron. ;-))