Hello again, and welcome back! It's Sunday afternoon as I write this; we just got home from town and from church before that. The villas are awfully quiet today, as everyone is either inside their homes or still out. One of the girls' villas is still out to lunch at the Skogen house. It probably comes as no surprise to you that we've had a very eventful week since I last wrote. Let me describe it.
Tuesday evening was fairly tame. Most of us just went home, practiced our instruments, and got to bed early. The very next morning, however, brought a dose of excitement. As usual, we ran through an SAT test, but as Mrs. Leigh went through the answers and solved the problems which had slowed us down, I began to pick up an excited buzz from both ends of the room. As Mrs. Leigh solved problem thirteen out of the eighteen on the page, I finally found the cause for excitement: Jacob and Samuel each had perfect scores so far. Seth did too. We all began rooting for them, waiting in suspense as Mrs. Leigh, with fate-laden hand, wrote each new answer on the whiteboard. We whooped on fifteen. We clapped on sixteen. On seventeen, we were silent, holding our breaths, and when eighteen appeared on the board, and two happy cries rang through the room, we joined them, cheering and filling the room with jubilation. Unfortunately, Seth missed the very last question. Despite that, it was a very good day. The rest of the afternoon went well. We didn't have class after lunch, so most of us had some down-time before work. Michael scored well on craigslist, bringing home a good electric guitar and amplifier for a good price. Because the sky was cloudy, most of us had another early night.
By the time Thursday's sun woke us the next morning, we were getting tired of the school week. Reluctantly, we dragged ourselves to the Mandala house (which I've only recently discovered is called the "Copper Lodge") and got down to the business of the day. Thankfully, we had a lot of music that day. While Mrs. Leigh's approach to math is refreshing and much different from how most of us have been taught, music is still a much more pleasant and less mentally demanding subject. Still, we played a few math games, like one in which each group of three people is given a pack of cards and a set of functions. As the dealer flips each new card over, the two players must plug the value of the card into the equation and the first person to call out the right number takes the card. At the end, whoever has the most cards becomes the new dealer, and the cycle continues. After lunch, we practiced our music together, and then broke for work. Apparently, we were nearly all out of food, because when Gracsyn, Laura, and I went to the local grocery store that evening, we ran into most of our fellows in the aisles.
We were all excited for the change that Friday brought. While we still had class, it was a change from the weeks past because we had our first guest speakers. During the week, a group of writers had been meeting at the Copper Lodge to work on Classical Conversations' next book. On Friday, after a deliciously long devotional session led by Mr. Bianco, we dove into a study of writing, examining the persuasive essay and the general art of rhetoric. Mrs. Leigh broke up class at noon, and we entered the dining room to find tables loaded with pizzas and cookies. We all took our seats while Caleb addressed the room at large, calling out a discussion topic, simply "women in the military", and gave us fifteen minutes to discuss. After that, he had us discuss the question of which was more important, color or music. We debated a few more points over the next hour, each of us challenging ourselves and each other. After lunch, one of the women taught us about the publishing side of writing. Eventually, the men and women left and we watched the Institute of Excellence in Writing expert Andrew Pudewa on DVD teach us about the SAT essay. It was a long day, but we were glad to do something different. We got home around six and a few hours later, when night had fallen, many of us found ourselves drawn to our front lawns. We piled blankets and sat together, talking, singing, and sometimes just listening to the sounds of the darkness until the wee hours of the morning.
Understandably enough, most of us rose late on Saturday. Mr. Skogen came by to help a few of the fellows practice piano. He joined the fellows for a game of basketball, and then he hung out with us in the driveway, telling stories and listening to ours. I know some of my fellows think differently, but I feel like he is as much a part of our fellowship as any of those living at the villas. After he left, a few of us cleaned our houses, while William led an expedition to Target, an expedition which lasted most of the afternoon. We were all free by eight, when we went back to the Copper Lodge to swing dance. The atmosphere was not one of productivity, and the still-tired fellows lost interest fairly quickly. Zack and I, along with Seth, an unexpectedly fantastic dancer, worked with some of the other fellows individually, and after an hour or so of that, we brought some cushions in and watched a Pixar movie until midnight.
With that, we come back to this morning, when most of us enjoyed the luxury of an extra hour of sleep before the morning service. Now I'm lying on the floor, listening to my roommates as they entertain the guys from the next villa over. In fact, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll join them.
Au revoir,
Barnabas.
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