My Vacation Part II
It seems that on some trips, nothing turns out like you planned/envisioned/hoped and you've got to make the best of everything until you get home - and then home is an even better place to be than it was before you left.
As noted previously, this trip has taught me how much I dread flying. I'm not proud of it, but it has not magically gone away. Once, when I was about 13 I think, there was a small earthquake during the morning hours when I was visiting my father for a weekend. I remember my father running out into the hallway in his underwear, having been woken from a dead sleep by the shaking. He was shouting instructions incoherently in a loud voice with every nerve on edge and seemingly with his red hair standing on end. It still makes me smile a bit despite myself, since I've seen my father afraid of so little, but I have more sympathy for his fear now. (At least I didn't run down the aisle of the planes we were on, shouting in only my underwear.)
When we arrived in Connecticut absolutely and utterly exhausted, we still had to endure a two hour train ride and a short taxi trip to get to the apartment in New Haven where we were going to be staying. I was already mildly sick, having started to have a bit of an allergy when we left. I took my antihistamines religiously but everything in New Haven was blooming and it seemed that dust motes rode the winds everywhere, so our allergies only got worse. Mine was worse than Valefor's (naturally), so that for most of the time I was blowing my nose often and walking around with red, watery eyes despite my doses of antihistamines.
I must say that New Haven is a lovely place, and Yale is every inch the grand place that it should be, given the money that has gone into it. The architecture is in an altogether older, grander style than we see where I live, with arches and carvings and stone everywhere. Many buildings looked like they could have been churches, and the dorms looked altogether too fine for such a lowly purpose as everyday living, and the churches that were actually churches were awesome indeed. Those folks know how to build churches.
The Yale graduation ceremony was about what I expected, for the most part, but I did not expect to recognize anyone receiving honorary degrees. In fact, I got to see Edward Albee and Sandra Day O'Connor receive honorary degrees. Having encountered Albee's works in my classes, I was already a fan.
The separate graduation for the public health division was held in one of their many lovely churches. Their guest speaker, Marian Wright Edelman was so down to earth and earnest I could have kissed her. She had a message and was going to say it, regardless of how removed her audience was from the suffering due to violence, poverty and disease that children face each day. She was truly inspirational. I found a picture of one of the folks we stayed with, Roberta, in her graduation gown (she's to the right, holding doll-thing). It turns out that Valefor's brother was rooming with some very nice people, and it is at their place that we spent the week. Hell, the last day or so we were totally alone in the apartment, with Valefor's brother having left on Wednesday night and Roberta having left on Friday morning...
As noted previously, this trip has taught me how much I dread flying. I'm not proud of it, but it has not magically gone away. Once, when I was about 13 I think, there was a small earthquake during the morning hours when I was visiting my father for a weekend. I remember my father running out into the hallway in his underwear, having been woken from a dead sleep by the shaking. He was shouting instructions incoherently in a loud voice with every nerve on edge and seemingly with his red hair standing on end. It still makes me smile a bit despite myself, since I've seen my father afraid of so little, but I have more sympathy for his fear now. (At least I didn't run down the aisle of the planes we were on, shouting in only my underwear.)
When we arrived in Connecticut absolutely and utterly exhausted, we still had to endure a two hour train ride and a short taxi trip to get to the apartment in New Haven where we were going to be staying. I was already mildly sick, having started to have a bit of an allergy when we left. I took my antihistamines religiously but everything in New Haven was blooming and it seemed that dust motes rode the winds everywhere, so our allergies only got worse. Mine was worse than Valefor's (naturally), so that for most of the time I was blowing my nose often and walking around with red, watery eyes despite my doses of antihistamines.
I must say that New Haven is a lovely place, and Yale is every inch the grand place that it should be, given the money that has gone into it. The architecture is in an altogether older, grander style than we see where I live, with arches and carvings and stone everywhere. Many buildings looked like they could have been churches, and the dorms looked altogether too fine for such a lowly purpose as everyday living, and the churches that were actually churches were awesome indeed. Those folks know how to build churches.
The Yale graduation ceremony was about what I expected, for the most part, but I did not expect to recognize anyone receiving honorary degrees. In fact, I got to see Edward Albee and Sandra Day O'Connor receive honorary degrees. Having encountered Albee's works in my classes, I was already a fan.
The separate graduation for the public health division was held in one of their many lovely churches. Their guest speaker, Marian Wright Edelman was so down to earth and earnest I could have kissed her. She had a message and was going to say it, regardless of how removed her audience was from the suffering due to violence, poverty and disease that children face each day. She was truly inspirational. I found a picture of one of the folks we stayed with, Roberta, in her graduation gown (she's to the right, holding doll-thing). It turns out that Valefor's brother was rooming with some very nice people, and it is at their place that we spent the week. Hell, the last day or so we were totally alone in the apartment, with Valefor's brother having left on Wednesday night and Roberta having left on Friday morning...