Last week began with some major excitement... On Monday I came home to find that my church was on fire. Which was, understandably, rather disturbing. From what I was able to gather, it was an electrical problem, something about heat building up but the breaker not shorting out, so it ended up catching some of the wood or something on fire. The consistory room, which doubled as my class' chatechism room, is gone, and the rooms directly above and below it are pretty much toast too. (Above it was a room holding some of the organ pipes, and not much else, and below it is either the ladies bathroom and coatroom, or the boiler room... Not exactly sure which one is right below.) I am really bummed about that chatechism room, because it was deeeeelux. We had uber comfortable leather chairs, and the coolest varigated green carpet, with elegant drapes to match. And there was a beautiful white piano, with lots of scrollwork and filigree. Everything in the building suffered smoke damage, but thankfully the stained glass windows all made it unscathed. They are really beautiful although they do have images of Christ on them. The whole building is really old and really cool- the doors are all huge, and they all have old-fashioned spider key locks. There were a whole bunch of books when we first came, lots of really nice old Schoolastics, which I wanted for my collection but didn't know how to ask for. There also is this giant cupboard of sheet music, that nobody has had time to look over yet. I have yet to know if it made it through the fire. It might not have, because the cupboard is really close to the boilder room and the bathroom... All in all, there is about $150,000 worth of damage, and we're going to be out of the building for 6 months. Right now we're in the Seminary, which is a bit of an awkward fit, for multiple reasons, although much better than the school gym. When the service ended, there were 3 deer grazing outside, which was pretty cool. Then we had chatechism, and my class had to make do with a hallway. It's one of those things that you think will never happen to you, so it is really hard to believe that my church is all sooty and burned right now. Can't get my mind around it.
Anywho, if that wasn't enough, the next day a convict escapes from the jail a few blocks away from our school, so we go under a lockdown and have to wait for the police to escort us out to the buses. There were helicopters everywhere, and a whole lot of hulabaloo. It was Tuesday, which is my hospital volunteer day, so I get there really late. Business as usual, I go out on break with Brooke and Deer blah blah blah. When I get back, I find out that my department is on lockdown, because they thought that Odius, the son of Nel (the convict) was in the hospital. Kind of freaky because I was out and about for most of the lockdown. Then, when we're moving again, the patients I bring down had had to wait for half an hour, and were minorities, so they had a few bees in their bonnet. Somehow I got things smoothed over, and in the end we parted friends.
Monday a church fire, and Tuesday a convict... I had some reservations about taking on Wednesday, but that was the end of all the goat roping for that week. Very thankful to have been spared through all that- it could have been a lot worse.
You Know It's Spring When:
A little closer...
Even closer...
And closer still...
