Five Lovely First Semester Memories

1.) The Night of The Writers. I call it that because that is what it was, a night where the writers among us gathered together in a writerly pow-wow, and it was the most wonderful night because of it. It started out with Alex and I sitting on a quilt in my bedroom, we both had our laptops out and were pounding feverishly away (as I have said, opportunities for writing during school are few and far between and as such are infinitely precious). Before long Monica joined us with her laptop and Jen with her notebook, and we simply continued sitting on the floor and writing. Later that evening we drank tea and started reading excerpts from our various stories out loud. It will always be one of my favorite memories from First Semester because it signifies so much of what I love about Christendom. I love that I have friends who love to write as much as I do. I love that we had an evening dedicated to writing. When I picture that night I think of us all giggling over Monica's fairytale, each in our own spot on the floor. I can't believe how blessed I am to have found myself in such a wonderful place, amongst such wonderful people. That night was story-book worthy, it deserves to be in a book, four girls, their writing and their tea.


2.) The Snow Day. I love snow. Perhaps this is partially due to growing up in a place where snow is considered either a rare treat by one set of people or a rare curse by another. Whatever the case, the day of the first snow I was extremely excited. I woke up bleary eyed and looking very much like your morning zombie, trudged out the door and down the hall to wash the sleepiness out of my eyes, when I walked past the window I saw a winter wonderland. As you can imagine I ran back into our room like:

 

Poor Jen would have gotten excited, only she had a migraine, so she couldn't. Kiersten doesn't like snow (she gets a lot at home). So my enthusiasm was entirely unwanted. I instantly hushed myself up but silently made this face to myself. 

If nobody else is going to be excited I am going to be excited all by myself.

It really was a wonderful day. Abby and I continuously rolled down hills. It was dizzying and exhilarating. We also got ourselves stuck in a ditch. I don't know how we ended up getting ourselves out of it- but we did.

 

 

3.) Number three is the night Jen and I laughed ourselves into hysterics. I don't think I have ever laughed so hard. I don't even know what we found so terribly amusing, but I do know that it started out as some rather morbid puns and it just went downhill from there. We nearly fell out of the bunk-bed...twice.

 

4.) Then there was the night of the Book Healer gathering. I was working late, so I gathered my book mending supplies and laid my claim on one of the upstairs study rooms of the library. Alex and Monica came to visit me and so we all sat around the table and talked and I glued together the spines of books falling apart. Alex took pictures of me mending and as this is a blog dedicated to the art of book healing I shall include one.

 

There is something physiologically healing in mending books.

 

5.) Avonlea Night. Avonlea Night was THE BEST. Road to Avonlea was my childhood TV show. I watched that show every morning wrapped up in my favorite blanket. So watching it with my dear friends one night at college was the most soothing, lovely thing. Honestly, one of my favorite memories of the whole semester.



The Book Healer

There once was a girl named Emily who had a bad habit of making too many blogs. I'm sure people grew very tired of it, and none of them could keep track of her because of it. However, Emily felt, there are times when you realize that you're not at all the same person that you were, and because of it, you need a different sort of blog.

I can never bear to delete my previous blog designs however, because I put so much work into them. There were hours upon hours that I spent fiddling with layouts and templates and headers, and the thought of throwing all that away is a bit unbearable. It's like throwing out an old journal, a journal that you feel too old to write in, it's true, but a journal that you spent time with, a journal that was part of yourself. Things like that are too precious to throw out. That's one of the things I love best in writing a blog, as the years pass you have your old writing to read, to remember, and most of it's terrible, but it was you. I guess that's part of the reason why I've periodically felt the need to start a new blog, because I know I can't stay in that place that I was before, I have to move on. I can't stay twelve, writing in pencil with lots of exclamation marks. I can't stay fifteen, blogging about the things one writes about at fifteen. The reason I'm writing this is because I often have to remind myself of it. Nostalgia is something that hits me with a powerful potency. I get to reminiscing and then I moan about how I want to go back and be a little girl again (I know, Mom, I'm a pain. Sorry.)

So this is me. New blog, new place in life. I'm in college now, so I'll probably be writing quite a lot about that. I'm working at the college library, which is where the new name for this blog comes from. One of my great blessings during my first semester was that I was offered a position in the book bindery, so I get to mend books! Which is just about the best thing, let me tell you. Alexandra and Monica dubbed it being a Book Healer, which sounds magical and fairytale worthy (they are also magical and fairytale worthy, but more on that later.)

I'm just about to start my second semester of college, Christmas break is almost over, and that's why I feel now is a good time to be starting this. I don't know how much I'll be able to write during school, because if there's anything I learned during first semester it is there's never enough time for ANYTHING. I do know though, that I will always need a place to write. There will always be times where I need to write myself out, because the words are crying to be written. Writing has always been such a large part of my life, and I know it always will be. Even if I spend most of my blogging time during breaks and summer vacation, I know that I will be jumping at the opportunity to do so. It's nice to know that this will be here waiting for me.

I think that's where I shall end this. It has the feeling of a very good beginning, a very good beginning indeed.