On This Date Ten Years Ago

I was a new transfer student at Whitworth University (then "College"), a small Presbyterian school in Spokane, WA. Little did I know as I composed the following email to the folks back home what a momentous occasion it was. For those that know me and my beloved soul mate (see, I say that and I don't even believe in soul mates!), I thought this might be a fun read, ten years after the fact.

Also, I am posting this to reveal to Brandon the reason of the "Special Mystery Day" for which I got up at 5:45 to make him breakfast and send him off with a special lunch. Thank you, dearest Brandon, for ten incredible years, which have been so much more than at 17 I could possibly have imagined. See you after work ... (-:

From: Virgiliana
To: weekly report group
Subj: Ongoing adventures in Washington
Date: 9/20/2003

I came here to my desk to begin this email and found I could not sit in the chair, since it was covered in books and papers. "Ah!" I thought. "The room is beginning to feel like home at last!"

The other day, one of the TAs in Ethics wrote what I consider the best Dr. W--- quote so far: "I'm not being homo-erotic! I'm trying to describe the sublime!" What's even better is one of the other religion teachers, T---- M--------, happened to come in before class to tell Dr. W--- something. Right before leaving, he looked at the white board and smiled confusedly. "We'll be discussing this in our next faculty meeting." Everyone laughed as he left. Dr. W---, very red in the face, stared into space for a moment. "Hooooo," he said. "There goes my tenure."

Oh! And I forgot to mention earlier -- I tried out for the Whitworth Choir. They posted assignments Monday of last week and I was disappointed to see that my name was not on the sheet. Then I started looking for the names of a couple other people I knew who had also tried out. I looked on the sheet marked *Trouveres* (I had no idea what that was) and there was my name! As it turns out, that's the women's choir. So anyway ... that is/will be fun! (-:

This morning I ate breakfast in the cafeteria alone, since I wanted to think about a story I've been writing. When I had just about finished, a nice young man named Brandon sat down and started chatting with me. We talked about Dante, biblical inerrancy and denominational differences in interpretation of the Bible, whether the theory of evolution makes sense ... and then went our several ways.

An hour or so after I got back to my room, quad-mate J---- grilled me on the incident, asking to hear every detail of the conversation. How on earth she heard about it, I've not a clue. She said "I'm tempted to go downstairs and write on the dorm message board 'Virgie and Brandon sitting in a tree ...'" I think I'm beginning to get an idea what it's like living in a small town.

-Virgie (-: