August 26, 2011
Tuesday was the first full day of classes. I woke up at 7:30, because I had Spanish at 9:00. Now, let’s set something straight. Regardless of the fact that Emmanuel’s Spanish course was pretty easy, I drove the struggle bus on the regular. When I say easy, I mean my professor hardly ever spoke to us in Spanish. I’ve never written a composition. Conjugating? I can never remember which irregular verbs belong with which tense. I can understand Spanish a decent amount, but I freeze up in conversation. My mind is blank. So, I go to Spanish knowing I’m going to make a fool of myself. Our professor seems pretty nice, but she speaks in Spanish almost the entire time. Ok, yeah, I know…that’s normal for most college Spanish classes. Just was not expecting it.
I made it through the class without having to speak much, but at the end of class professora took role. She begins calling out names, and with the name change to Dill, I should be at the front end of things; however, she zipped right by the first 5 letters of the alphabet without saying my name. I thought to myself, no big deal. Maybe the registrar didn’t switch from my maiden name. Nope. Ashlie Steward is not on that list. I wait, thinking maybe I just somehow got tagged on at the end. Nope. Professora asks if anyone’s name was not called. Only I raised my hand. She looks over the sheet to she if she missed my name. Still not there. So she grabs the sheet for the 10 am class. And I’m on there.
I went to class an hour early.
Classic Ashlie mistake. Sigh. Other than that little fluke, things went marvelously. As I might have mentioned, I really like the school. I’m taking a slightly lighter load than I have in past semesters which is nice while we adjust to North Dakota and marriage. The way it all worked out, I have no classes on Fridays…which is AWESOME. It’s a three day weekend, every weekend.
Something I noted: This campus has many lovely trees as did my past campuses – Siena College and Emmanuel College. So I’m walking around admiring the beauty and I realize that something is missing. Squirrels. At the time I noticed, I had not seen one squirrel. Not one on the entire campus. What is going on? Where are my tree-dwelling friends? Call me strange, but I like to see me some cute, furry woodland creatures on my way to class. Anyhow, I consult some of my friends at the Newman Center about this and Kristi fills me in on the squirrel situation. If one traps a squirrel on one’s property (apparently they’re kind of a nuisance?) one must take it far, far away – waaaay out of town, otherwise the squirrel will find its way back and continue to menace the home. WHAT? I don’t know if all the squirrels met this fate, but I’m feeling pretty bad for all the lost squirrels out there. Anyways, yesterday on my way to class in the morning, I saw a delightfully adorable squirrel. But it was SO SMALL. It was a squirrel but it was the size of a chipmunk. Was it a baby squirrel? I don’t know. But I loved it and wanted to make it my pet.
On a sad note: Today Josh put the new plates on the car. Azul no longer dons the majestic pine tree and it makes me weep. Many journeys with these plates – my unintentional hit and run in which someone copied down these fine digits and I got a visit from the police the next morning…or perhaps the epic journey in Hillsboro, getting lost with Kelsi, Andrea and Brigit. Beach trips. The daily grind. Rear ending that truck. But mostly getting lost on a regular basis.
Really, the week has proved quite wonderful. Every night there’s been dinner at the Newman Center, so we’ve gone to daily Mass at 5:15 and then enjoyed some excellent company and yum yums to follow. Daily Mass is beautiful, and we’re so blessed to have it practically in our backyard. We’re really looking forward to participating in our Lord’s feast everyday. And there’s also daily Rosary right before Mass. The Lord is so good, and I am eager to see what He does in our lives and hearts this year. Please, if you have any prayer intentions send them to us so that we can pray for you.
Ps. Still making my way through the THANK YOU notes. They WILL get DONE.
a dillightful adventure 