It's been awhile! And here we are - almost at the end of the school year! Honestly, who would have thought? It truly seems like I just got back from Camp and was buying my books for the Fall ... and now I'm headed back to Camp, and turning in my books from the Spring. For meagre, meagre amounts of money ... oh, the turnover that the University Bookstore gets.
Mmmm ... so spring is CERTAINLY in the air, and I can't get enough of it. Today, before I got my study on, I was lucky enough to join my roommate Shanti and our friend Ed for some brunch on the Capitol Square and some wandering around the Farmer's Market. (Which, for the record, is my new most favorite thing about Madison. I can't believe I hadn't experienced it before!) I absolutely aaaadooore (catch the 'It Takes Two' reference) Madison in the spring. Truly, truly my favorite things in the world. Or up there, at least.
Speaking of which, I was just reminded of a favorite quote by CS Lewis from the Screwtape Letters (an excellent read, folks, an excellent read).
Humans live in time, and experience reality successively. To experience much of it, therefore, they must experience many different things; in other words, they must experience change. And since they need change, [God] ... has made change pleasurable to them ... but since He does not wish them to make change ... an end in itself, He has balanced the love of change in them by a love of permanence. He has contrived to gratify both tastes together in the very world He has made, by that union of change and permanence which we call Rhythm. He gives them the seasons, each season different yet the same, so that spring is always felt as a novely yet always as the recurrence of an immemorial theme.
Perhaps that is indeed one of the beauties of spring: the newness of it, and yet - the newness that is alway somehow the same. Love it, love it. Spring's always been good to me ... there's just something about driving with the windows down for the first time, not having to walk out the door with two sweatshirts and long johns on, smelling the lilacs in the air and watching the trees burst with blossoms seemingly overnight ... ya just can't beat it.
It's been an interesting school year, and in a way I'm sad to see it go. I'll totally miss my apartment and the relatively easy schedule, Shanti's cooking and late night dance parties ... but, I'm also pumped for my camping trip, Camp (even if I'm still wondering where on earth I'll get that energy from), and for coming back for another year in Madison. The house next year should be fab, and I'm looking forward to getting more involved in Campus Crusade and leading a Bible study at the Chapel / Student Center. Who knows - maybe I'll even get a job. We'll see ...
Random: Shanti and I have decided as of late that I totally need to visit her in India over Christmas. (Needless to say, I've been doing a little airfare searching instead of looking up which Greek hero was inadvertently boiled by his own children.)
Well, it looks like it's time for some dinner, Harry Potter, and possibly, possibly more studying. Eh, my exam's not till three tomorrow ... I've got time ...
