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Day’s Verse:

For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award me on that day – and not only me, but also all who have longed for his appearing.

2 Tim. 4:6 – 8

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Last year one day Lesley and I went on a photo-taking binge. This included climbing to the top of the Campus Center and peeking out some tiny windows there, which afforded this view of the First Baptist Church steeple. I cannot say I had ever seen such a perfectly traditional church before; though it turns out I could not handle their perfectly traditional way of holding a service. Getting excited over the purchase of a harpsichord… Also their exceedingly fundamentalist beliefs scared me away.

Also last fall, I began experimenting with my baby camera and its ability to take close-up pictures. This is one of the first that actually turned out. I liked the contrast between the highly artificial nature of the road, with its darkness, and the organic nature bright red leaf. Some of the pictures I like so much are sheer luck, though, like this one.

In May, we went to California to celebrate our the 50th anniversary of our grandparents. At the reception, they had plates with neatly-arranged Andes mints, which nobody can resist for long. I caught Colleen munching one and snapped this picture, forgetting I had the flash on. It went off, and the rest – as they say – is history. Especially for the mint, which only lasted another two bites.

Ian and I started feeling quite casual about plane flights by the time I took this picture. We were on our way home from the 50th Anniversary bash, which took place mere days after Ian and I got to Washington for the summer. So we had flown from Worcester home, then a day later from Washington to California. Bored on the way back, I took lots of pictures, many of which turned out rather jiggly as a result of the plane’s movement. Still, I liked the effect of the wiggle on this one (and acutally another one of Mom as well, but I decided to spare her the embarrassment of posting it here).

Later in the summer, towards the middle, I attended one of the reliably fun things of the year: Tiffany’s birthday party. They are always a little crazy, but lack that distinctive awkwardness of people hanging out who have little to say to each other. This time there were only about six people invited, but we did all sorts of crazy activities to keep ourselves entertained. At one point we went to a cool coffee shop called Joe Bar, and there I caught this reflection.

Also on the same day, later, we sat around her apartment as the sun set. I was impressed by the quality of the light – what photographers call Golden Hour had come upon us quickly and surprisingly beautifully. The sun reflected off their artistic lamps (Tiffany and her sister could not live without artistic touches like that) in a way that begged to have a picture taken of it.

Finally, Norway Hill looms north of our house. At the top in a gap between houses you can see 180 degrees from Lake Washington north. Ian and I rushed up there one evening just at sunset and took a bunch of pictures that did not look so great. This one, not even of the gorgeous view, caught my eye with the contrast between the softness of the light and the gleaming off the industrial metal of chain link fences.

In other news, having the day off is nice but thus far proved little advantage in terms of studying. The IQP has stalled out as its resources dried up and I think both Lesley and I are tired of this dry academic research. We did, however, make cool T-shirts commemorating our IQP – not part of the grade, but distincly morale-building. Also, the weather has cooled off so that we leave most of the windows closed. This is positive because it lets fewer bugs in. Speaking of bugs, is there any way to kill fruit flies easily? Do they eat anything besides fruit? (We stopped leaving fruit out and are hoping they will die of starvation.)

– KF –