My brother came up last night to see The Secret Garden at Greensboro College, so I met him there and he came back and stayed with me last night. The show was really quite good, and I liked the music, even though I’d never heard most of the show before. It makes a lot of changes in the story (from what I remember of reading the book, which I need to go back and re-read now), but they’re usually for the sake of spreading out the story among the cast, it seemed. I seem to recall the book being largely about Mary and how she changed over the course of tending to the garden and helping with Coin’s recovery, whereas the musical made a much bigger deal about Archibald Craven’s loss of his wife Lily, and all the backstory on Mary’s family’s time in India was told in dream-like sequences that were quite well-done. I’ll have to keep Greensboro College in mind when thinking about arts events to try out in the future.
We slept in a little this morning (I had my big departmental seminar yesterday, so I felt justified in taking a little time off 
) and went to the Celtic Cafe for lunch – very tasy Ireland-inspired meals, complete with soda bread. He’s now off to Raleigh to see another show (which some friends of his are performing in) and I’m back at work. It was fun to spend some time together, especially since he’ll be moving in the next several months, perhaps quite far away…
Speaking of my seminar, it went really well – I didn’t get nearly as worked up about this one as I have in the past, though I still did feel like throwing up right before Dan introduced me. I was presenting a lot of new data, which is awesome, but it also meant that I’d not presented it before and the first time is always a bit rough in spots, trying to communicate what I think is important without getting bogged down in all the details. But I think it well ok, and I got some interesting ideas to think about, plus the relief of that being my last departmental talk until I defend my thesis. Yikes.
Oh, and I’m over halfway through The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl – I’ll probably finish it this weekend. It was really slow going for the first 40-50 pages, but it really picked up and now I’m quite sucked in. I’ll save any further comments for once I finish the book.
(Sorry this post is so ADD, I feel like it’s jumping everywhere – it’s kinda all-encompassing for my life in the past week or so)
I’m borrowing this from Sarah – hope she doesn’t mind
1. Egg nog or hot chocolate?
Hot chocolate definitely – I’ve never liked egg nog, I think it’s the idea of it that grosses me out more than anything. I’ve been liking my hot chocolate with peppermint lately – yum!
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Well, they get wrapped (unless it was something really big, then it was usually left out in the garage covered by a blanket – hehe) – our family still does a ‘Santa’ present, but it’s only been nominally Santa since my brother and I were pretty little – Santa’s never been a big part of our Christmas (I’m pretty sure I’ve heard my mom say that there was no way she was letting Santa get the credit for the best gift, so the ‘better’ gifts always came from my parents 
)
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
I like white personally, but we’ve always had colored ones at home (on the tree, that is). I’m a fan of the big, retro colored ones for outside, cause I think they’re cute, but even outside, I like how much the white ones remind me of snow and frost.
4. Do you hang mistletoe?
nope – not one of our traditions – I did go to a party last year with some up, and it was funny watching people keep an eye on who was where in relation to the mistletoe
5. When do you put your decorations up?
Me personally, I put them up whenever I feel like it – my family has always done it around the start of Advent I think – sometime between Thanksgiving and Advent I guess.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish?
We don’t really have a big tradition for Christmas food, except that it’s often a replica of our Thanksgiving meal (we’ve done wierd stuff in the past for Christmas, like going to the beach for a week) – I remember a year when we had salmon for Christmas I think. Anyway, I really like the cornbread stuffing Dad and I have been making the last several years – I could give up the turkey and the pies and just have stuffing and be totally happy.
7. Favorite holiday memory as a child?
Probably the Christmases we spent with my dad’s parents before they died – we used to go there for most of the holiday (with a little time spent at my mom’s parents) – I used to brush Grandma’s hair and all the kids played in the basement and drank 7Up and tried to pretend we knew how to play pool on the pool table.
More recently, I love the Moravian love feasts we’ve been going to (probably since we moved to NC when I was 10) – you get to sing all the best Christmas carols, and drink hot chocolate and light candles – it’s awesome!
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
I don’t really remember – Santa wasn’t huge in my family, so it was probably pretty early…
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
Yup – we usually open one on Little Christmas Eve (night before Christmas Eve), one on Christmas Eve, and then the rest (usually only one or two more) on Christmas. I fight this every year, cause I’d rather save them and open them all on Christmas, but I get over-ruled every year Mom always liked to spread out the holiday stuff, so there wasn’t so much chaos and emphasis put on the glut of gifts on that day. We also did stocking on St. Nicholas Day in early December, so that spread out the gift-giving even farther.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
Dad puts the lights on first (which usually takes a while, even if he puts them all away carefully the year before), and then we all have at it, putting on our favorite/personal ornaments. For me, I have a small, pre-lit tree and some small ornaments for it, but I don’t really have any traditions for decorating it.
11. Snow! Love it or dread it?
Love, love, love it! Not such a big fan of the ice, but I love the snow! It’s the damn Yankee part of me coming out
12. Can you ice skate?
Sure – again, the northern part of me takes over! I grew up skating, often on very rough outdoor rinks, but it always takes a little while to get back into the swing of it.
13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
hmmm. I don’t know – I know that my Grandma and Grandpa used to get me stuff for my American Girl doll, and those were the best Christmases – lately, mom will usually ask what I want, or when we’re out shopping, if I see something, she’ll buy it and tell me to forget about it – hehe.
14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you?
Time with family (either nuclear or extended), and remembering the importance of the incarnation of Christ – For Unto Us a Child is Born!
15. What is your favorite holiday dessert?
I like pumpkin pie ok, but I really like the Christmas cookies we make (well, except the yucky spritz cookies we used to make, not a fan of those) – peanut blossoms (‘kiss cookies’), ribbon cookies, sugar roll-outs, etc.
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
I love traditions, but my family is not always so big on them – we usually do the Moravian Love Feast and I love that. Baking the cookies is always fun, and so is decorating the tree, but a lot of things have changed since Matthew and I are grown up…
17. What tops your tree?
A very old angel – we’ve had her on the top for as long as I can remember Christmases I think (though I feel like Mom may have bought a new one a year or two ago…). We used to fight over who got lifted up to put the Angel on top.
18. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving?
Giving – I love spending time finding the EXACT right gift for someone, and then watching them enjoy opening it (assuming they do enjoy it!). Of course, I love getting gifts, but it’s not quite as much fun.
19. What is your favorite Christmas song?
I’m with Sarah, I can’t really pick just one – Messiah (see entry below), In the bleak midwinter, I wonder as I wander, tons of cheesy 80s CCM music that I grew up associating with Christmas.
20. Candy canes! Yuck or yum?
Yum – not my favorite holiday candy, but I like them – and they come in so many flavors now! I like them on trees too.
I’ve been kinda slack about updating, but things have been a little bit busy lately – trying to catch up from all the time I missed in lab over the last couple months, catching up with what’s been going on in everybody’s lives while I was gone.
I spent the first part of this past weekend at home, celebrating mom’s birthday – her birthday was actually last weekend, but we did the big celebration this Saturday. Dad invited several friends over, and Matthew and I were both there – good food, nice to catch up with family friends. And Matthew and I gave Mom her birthday present. She and Matthew really wanted to see Spamalot when it comes through Charlotte in December, and we talked about doing it as a family, but Dad and I weren’t all that excited about it (I mean, I want to see it, but I don’t want that to be all of Christmas, you know?). So Matthew bought his tickets and we split Mom’s ticket, but we didn’t actually have the physical tickets, so I had to come up with a way to give them as a gift. So I bought 3 cans of Spam, wrapped them individually in tissue paper and printed out color copies of poster and ticket pictures of the show and put them in the bottom of a gift bag with the Spam on top. So she unwrapped the Spam first and was trying to figure things out – we had to cheer her on with coming up that it was ‘A LOT’ of Spam and then she stood up and shouted ‘SPAMALOT’! It was great! I had to leave early to head back to Winston so I could get to church the next morning.
Sunday was a fabulous, day-long music festival in Cary – we left after church and arrived just in time to see Caedmon’s Call start their set, which was awesome (and my first time seeing them in concert). There was so much going on, music on the main stage, smaller tent area for individual performers. We tried a Turkish/Mediterranean restuarant for lunch (after a lot of driving around looking for places that were familiar ), and then went back to hear Jason Harrod, Andrew Osenga, Over the Rhine (they did ‘I don’t wanna waste your time’ again!!!!!!), and Pierce Pettis (there were others, those were just the ones I was most excited about). It was HOT for the first several hours (around 80 in full sun), but then cooled down really well for the evening shows. We ended up leaving after a couple Indigo Girls songs (as we weren’t all that excited about them), and had a couple hours drive back. It was a great day with lots of good music and hanging out with friends – and it was a fundraiser for a non-profit that is helping to fight AIDS in Africa, so it was all for a good cause.
And now I’m back to a normal routine. We’re going to the fair on Wednesday (Bible study group), and I’ll be going to my first Wake Forest footbal game (I know, gasp!) this weekend against Clemson – GO DEACS!!!
So we’re at the beach for the week this week, and I’m plugged in to veeeery slow dial-up here at Topsail Island. We’re staying at a friend’s vacation house (fabulous to have friends with nice things ), and they have all kinds of fun toys that they let us borrow. So today Matthew and I took the ocean kayaks out of the canal (where the house is situated) and into the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway! And while I had a moment of freaked-out-ness right before I got into the boat (I mean, it’s a tiny little boat, and even though you don’t get zipped into these ones, they’re still tippy and low-riding), it was one of the coolest things I’ve done in a long while. We probably rowed maybe 1-1.5 miles total, up the inside of the island and then back. Along the way we saw two beautiful herons (I think Great Blues), both of which stuck around long enough for us to get pretty close before flying away (very gracefully). And then, as we were getting close to the point where we’d decided to turn around, I saw what I at first thought were birds sitting on the water maybe a hundred feet ahead of me. After staring at the waves for a couple seconds, I realized they were fins!!! Dolphin fins!!!!! There were at least 2, maybe 3 dolphins swimming lazily up ahead of us, periodically coming up to the surface in that arch that lets you see their fin and silvery back. It was soooo awesome! I really wished then that I’d brought my camera, but I just wasn’t sure enough that I wouldn’t tip the first time out. We’re planning on going back out if the weather cooperates later this week (there’s some hurricane aftermath coming through that’s supposed to bring us some rain tomorrow and Thursday).
