tornado's and other such calamities

well. it's been a crazy few days. shall i start from the beginning? alright. i will. Wednesday: woke up at 6:45am. pushed 'snooze' until 6:50am. Shower. Breakfast in the Great Hall. Oatmeal. Oatmeal with rasins, brown sugar, and granola. Fruit. Real. Strawberries. Four of them. Begin to head back to Founders, exiting the back of carter it's raining so hard i can't see mills, let alone the end of the stairs leading down to ground level. there are five stairs. i run back to founders as fast as i can. drenched. i look like i just jumped into a pool with all my clothes on. great. attempt to dry off a bit. my hair is dripping wet, literally looks like i just hopped out of the shower. head to work at 8. head to the chapel to change some random filters. 8:30am the first tornado alarm goes off. "hell no, i'm not staying in the chapel until it's all clear..that could be hours" i say to myself. i run back to founders. miss all the fun in catacombs? no freakin way. %75 percent of the people there were in pj's, and the rest fell asleep or were doing homework. i wish i has just woken up. oh well. all clear at 9:25. check on the classroom my chow2 class was in just in case we started late. nope. cancelled. along with the rest of my classes that day. sweet. no stats. sad. no final doctrine 2 class with kapic. power is out. it's creepy. it sort of feels like the apocalypse. lights out. dark sky. noone around except for a few dedicated students. no professors are around except for wingard. go into work again at 10am. not a single person in the office. creepy. no windows in that place. look for my bosses for the whole hour. can't find any of them anywhere. 11:00 chapel is cancelled. no stats either. early lunch's are always a good thing. go into work at 12:45 because it's the earliest i can go in because of conflicting work-study and class. lame. again, noone is in the office. did everyone get abducted? or just blown away in the tornado? weird. find them after 30 minutes. check if mills has power. then brock. then probasco. seriously? half of mills, and all of probasco, and probasco. no residence buildings have any sort of power. tornado alarm goes off again at 2:00ish. everyone's back on the 'combs. nice. now most people are awake. hang out in my room with jungle. 13 people total, not counting paul-who had just woken up for the second time-who managed to stare out the window for 45 minutes straight while remaining somehow lifeless...or at least motionless. poor anna-clare and caroline. paul's rump sticking out mere inches from their heads. with his awkward basketball-shorts/sleeping shorts. awkwardness abounds. all clear not too long after 3:00pm. no use going into work, because of the conflicts of class and work study. even though class was cancelled. dumb. wander around for a while. then head to dinner at 5:30ish. eat dinner in third lobby with dima, april, teddy, nicole, tabitha, and a few various and sundry people on he founter. shortly after we went down to catacombs once again for the third tornado, and this time we were smart. we brought snacks. an entire gallon of goldfish crackers. heck yes. Another tornado alarm about an hour after. at this point i'm not even bothering to leave the 'combs. then a little while later, another alarm went off. that made...four. that time i was in kevin's room reading bedtime stories with sarah, annie, erin, caroline, and ryu. almost too soothing. i think i dozed off a few times. the wind outside was harsh, but sweetly lulling me to sleep. no! i must remain awake to witness the history going down. we were all weary of running up and down the stairs to catacombs. after everything was clear, we [catacombs] decided to play murder in the dark. and being catacombs we did so in our true selves. the last alarm went off while we were in the middle of a game. we hurriedly ran to our rooms to put some form of clothing on. after the all clear was given, we resumed. we played for two hours. after that became dull, we decided to run across campus. what fun. then it was time for bed at 2:30am. Thursday: wake up at 9:00. classes are cancelled. work-study office is barren and dark. still creepy without lights. look for bosses and discover them outside the door. i'm supposed to go check something. on my way i overhear that finals might be cancelled, which i am told to repeat to noone. i help fix a door in carter, and then a hand-rail. i get off early to 'go study for finals'. lunch at noon. work at 12:30. noone there, the boss lets me off because there isn't anything to do. classes are cancelled, nothing to do. time to take a nap. just as i lay down i overhear dave connis on the phone right outside my door telling someone that there is no water or electricity. something i already knew. then michael johnson comes into my room and tells me finals have officially been cancelled. then dave walks into the room and says there is an all hall meeting at 3pm. he says we have until the following day [friday] to get all moved out because the building isn't deemed safe anymore since there is no more water, or electricity. i immediately begin pulling my things off the wall, and out of drawers. it's 3. time for the moment of truth. finals are cancelled. we have to evacuate by the next day at the same time. we have 24 hours to get all packed up, find a place to stay, and figure out what to do about graduation. holy crap. 24 hours. now the countdown begins. i race back to my room, racking m brain for a place that i could stay until graduation. could i go home, and then come back for graduation? dad would never allow it. 'big waste of gas' he would say. kevin offers up his house for me to stay at for the week leading up to graduation. i immediately accept. i attempt to finish packing, and saying goodbye to everyone there. dinner is rushed, and not too filling. more packing..is it possible to have that many posters of stuff that went on on campus? lordy, there must be 10,000. now i can't pack any more, all the light is gone because the sun has set. find a flashlight. pack some more. walmart run because i'm unsure if there will be breakfast in the morning. we manage to fit 8 people in john's 5 person car. good lord. talk about the most uncomfortable/enjoyable car-ride of the semester. five people in the back seat. three in the two front seats. dima, teddy, and john up front, april, nicole, tabitha, mindy and myself in the back. talk about cramped. i buy pop-tarts. get back, try on wacky clothes from the free-pile. decide to watch a movie at 1am. the great escape. i manage to stay awake until 3am. i give up and go to bed. at 3:10 after brushing my teeth by flash-light..nice and similar to candle-light. Friday wake up friday at 9. exams cancelled, i wake up and pack the rest of my stuff. cramming things where they will obviously will not go, and somehow managing to fit them in. my storage bin was literally bursting at the seams. closing it required me to sit on top and jump to close it. lug the storage bin to storage on rivendell, then move all of my stuff into the hartzells van. get all checked out, and turn in my room-key. it still feels weird to know that i won't be living in the same room that i've been in since arriving at covenant. erin sprains her ankle, so i help her back from nurse barb's office. she's still not used to the crutches. ups conflicts for her, so we take her duffel bag, and drive to the hartzell homestead and unpack everything. i grab my first shower in three days, and get some lunch. quesedilla's. cereal. delicious to have hot/cold food instead of room-temperature food. head back to campus, help people pack, and say our goodbye's. it's been such an emotional time the past few days. thursday morning we were supposed to have an entire week to process, and finish up the semester, and do stuff before the semester ends, and have proper goodbye's. thursday afternoon we had 24 hours to pack and say goodbye. there just wasn't enough time to process evetything. i felt especially sad for the seniors, who didn't have enough time to say all their goodbye's to those who wouldn't be at graduation. sheesh. we left campus around 4:30ish, and picked erin up from the ups store on the way. we get back to the house, and unpack, and re-arrange the garage. we eat dinner, then put everything in its place. i help erin make sure her bags are all under 50lbs to avoid those pesky fee's at the airport. not sure when i'll see her again. exhausted we all go to bed. Saturday: wake up at 8:30am, and send erin off to the airport, and eat scones. i get picked up from the hartzells by april, teddy, and dima, at around 11. we go to target and april buys some clothes because she can't do laundry and all of her clothes are dirty. then we all go to panera for lunch, and postulate about how strange the whole situation is. out of school a week early, but still in the same town that school is in. strange indeed. we then went to the dollar theatre, and not seeing anything we wanted to on the bilboard decided to red-box something. we went to walmart to buy some food, and look for movies. nothing. so we went to teddy's sisters apartment and hang around there and are joined by mary who then helps us decide to go to coolidge park and wander around. things get boring when you don't have any money. we then went back to the apartment and sparringly ate some dinner provided. apple fritters[which were actually pancakes with apple pieces in them...], and some sort of egg casserole. then we went to pick up some of april's stuff from her aunt's house, and we go to the bluff and look at the city below. then we leave and drop dima off at his siters house where he will leave the next morning. it was a long and drawn out goodbye. we leave and go back to the house where we watch a few episode's of scrubs and get to bed. i get the smaller couch. it's too short for me, but i manage to get the ottoman and make a sort of crooked bed. it's better then the floor so i'm not complaining. Sunday: wake up, and everyone has left for church. get some tea, and relax and play with the cat until everyone gets back and we make a late lunch. homemade pizza. so good. we laze around the house until we decide to go see a movie. april, teddy, mary and i go to walmart to get some candy for the movie. we see 'i am number four'. it's laughable. we then go back to the hartzells house. i talk to kelly for a while, and head to bed. needless to say it's been a crazy weekend. relaxing, and so much fun. but crazy. hopefully i'll be able to relax more the rest of the week. hopefully there will be more relaxing times ahead this week. if not? oh well. it's summer and time to relax. i'm going to get all i can out of it.