PART ONE

This weekend, my mom and I flew up to Williams college. It was full of crazy insanity, which I shall now proceed to explain. and I'm quite aware that the tense I use changes throughout this message.... I was just writing, I couldn't help it.

Friday

I was able to skip school, seeing as our flight left at 11-ish, but I still had to get up at 8. We left a few minutes behind schedule, but no big deal. I drove there - we were leaving from BWI, which is nearly an hour away.

So we got there and got to our gate in plenty of time, anyway. We were flying Southwest airlines, because they have a nice cheap flight from BWI to Albany, which is the closest airport to Williamstown. The major feature of Southwest is that nobody is assigned seats. Instead, you get a boarding pass according to when you get there, and they let you in in order of your boarding pass and you pick your seat. There were only 25-ish people on our flight, so it wasn't a big deal. We pick up our boarding passes at Gate 12, then get sent to Gate 8 to board. We board our plane, start taxiing away from the gate.... and then we TAXI BACK!!! "Odd," we all think. Apparently there was an Odd Light on the dashboard plane running thingy, so they had to get it checked out. We sat there for a while, and then they sent us off of the plane and back to the terminal. So we waited around the gate, and then got sent to another gate (13, I believe). We got food - we were hungry by that point. So we waited around for a while, then they said that they were combining 3 flights, but that we had to get on last because it wasn't originally our flight. So we're standing in line, and THEN we get informed that we're getting our own plane. So we go to another gate - 11 or something like that and get on a plane and finally take off and we're flying along and rising, and suddenly the engines get quiet and it feels like the plane is slowing down and I think "Oh my gosh we're going to die"... but we didn't, it was okay, and we got to Albany, NY... admittedly an hour late, but we got there nonetheless.

So we rent a car (an SUV. a TAN SUV. I think that defeats the purpose...) and drive to Williamstown, Massachusetts - in the very NW corner of the state, about an hour from Albany. It was snowing, which excited me because I love snow!! We couldn't meet up with Brent (my brother, who we went up to see) right then, because he was doing something, I actually don't know what... but my parents are good friends with one of the Williams profs and his family, so we went and hung out at their house for a while, until we went and met Brent at his dorm. We had dinner in one of the dining halls.

After that, I went to the concert of one of the a cappella groups on campus, the Elizabethans. They sing a lot of Rennaissance music and madrigals, that sort of thing. Walking across the campus alone on my way to the concert was an experience I don't think I'll ever forget. The snow was falling softly and crunching underfoot. The air was crisp and clean and cold, just the way I like it. It was absolutely silent. I started praying - I honestly couldn't help it. I told God (for the 30 trillionth time, but somehow it felt more real since I was there) how much I wanted to go to Williams, and I prayed that I would get in - but if not, that he would help me get through it. I remembered the feeling I had gotten the first time I visited Williams, a feeling I haven't wanted to put too much stake in, on the chance that I didn't interpret it correctly - but the feeling that the school is really where God wants me. For those few minutes, walking across the campus, I felt as if I was inside a prayer - I know that sounds weird, but it's the only way I could describe it. It was cold, and dark, and there weren't people around - all three of which I pretty much hate - but I felt absolutely safe.

The Elizabethans concert was very cool. They were good - not great, but good. They sang in the Chapel, which is this catherdal-type thing.... small in the grand scheme of things, but it felt big inside - vaulted ceilings, stained glass windows, the works. So that concert went until 7:50, at wehich point I ran back across the campus (no time to contemplate Life this time) to...

Brent's Ephlats Concert. The Ephlats are reportedly THE best a cappella group on campus. They proved it. They sing a pretty wide range of stuff, from pop to, well, I dunno, other stuff. Probably one of their best features is that most of their songs weren't written as a cappella songs, so they've been arranged with one soloist, and most of the rest of the people sang whatever it is that the musical instruments play in the piece.... very hard to describe, but very very VERY cool.

After that we get to the completely crazy insane part of my day.... it was around 9:30, 10 at that point, and my night had only just begun. Today's night, on the other hand, is winding down, so I shall get to that tomorrow.

Ki"TRIVIA!"ki