The week that whizzed by

Since returning from my last backpacking experience of the summer, the settled life makes the time fly by. Last Monday we began design development for our chairs. My wood professor, Bjorli is in his mid-50s, has blonde hair, and looks remarkably like Jack Nicholson. He also wears prescription RayBan Wayfarers sunglasses, coincidentally the same pair I have been wearing and we joke about it. He's got a great sense of jolliness about him. Quick to smile and crack a joke. Very pleasant to be around. Actually, all of the professors are that way. It makes the desk critiques enjoyable - but it's made me a little sad that I can't enjoy the deskrits that much at UVA. I loosen up so much more with people who aren't so stuck up. It's amazing how much better my performance has been largely due to the atmosphere of this studio environment.

However, I will say that UVA has spoiled me with appreciation for precise drawing skills. We were to make construction drawings of our chair to work from in the woodshop. Only, we were given a rickety old T-square and tracing paper as actual paper. No Mayline! This means that my "straight" lines were not square at all. Let's just hope my chair turns out alright.

One of my best friends, Kate Myers, visited me with her friend Weezie Cannon on Thursday through Sunday. They had been backpacking for the last 5 weeks to allll over Europe for a Art & Architectural History class. James, Jen, and I showed them around Cope but actually ended up going places none of us had explored yet. Friday night, our classmate Carly Pumphrey had all five of us over to her and her husband's apartment (congradulations, newlyweds!) where we feasted on the most amazing fajitas marinated in Carly's recipe of Coke, lime juice, and salsa. It could easily be my favorite meal of the entire summer. We played "three on a couch" for a few hours afterwards - apparently a youth group game I missed out on at St. Timothy's. Saturday, the five of us explored Christiana, an island just off the central "medieval" city. The canal was reminiscent of Amsterdam but was filled rim to rim with sailboats. Daddy Harr would have wet his pants. After poking around a bit, we decided to splurge on the entrance fee to climb the 400 STAIRS to the top of this old church for a panorama of Copenhagen. We all survived the Thighmaster 3000, which would not be in operation in the U.S., for certain. There were steeeeep stairs and nooks and crannies you had to crawl through to get to the top of the bell tower. When we reached the top, we could see this black backdrop to the city because a storm was coming. The others decided to head back down the stairs to beat the crowd before the storm. James and I, however, decided to climb up to the very tip top just to say we did. And I did. Then, I got the heebee jeebies because the wind gusts kicked up, and I realized I was probably 500 ft above the ground, maybe more. Definitely one of my favorite memories thus far.