How can it be that an entire half of a semester has simply flown by and left me standing there wondering where it all went? Amazingly, it's Spring Break and I'm left gasping for air and ready for a one-week vacation from the roller coaster. It seems that everyone will agree that it's about time we got to the break, too. I'm thinking this will be the perfect recharge for campus... allowing people to come back and enjoy renewed strength and a refreshed look at life (not droopy like the dining experience at College and not stagnant like the Crim Dell...) Somehow the idea of seven blissful days in familiar territory where I can snuggle up to a warm couch and cozy food and loving arms of family is just the perfect medicine.

I have learned a lot in one month's time... plenty about classwork and balance... a lot more about life and living in the world. After all, we enjoy a liberal arts education and I'm taking full advantage of that opportunity these four years: in and outside the classroom! Not as much inside as I would like, but when life starts to take over, it's sometimes very difficult to resist. I feel refreshed already just from completing this week - drained, yes - but content to be finished. Now I just need to find my way home tomorrow afternoon... one step at a time. First through the final moments in Williamsburg, then on to Richmond as I drop off a friend, and to Charlottesville to visit family before I arrive at the final destination of the sleepy mountains in Southwestern Virginia. The sleepy Valley and Ridge, where the trees are only beginning to wake up from the long winter's edge (even with the prospect of a ferocious winter storm later in the weekend), and the river still runs quick and cold. Jack Frost with his icy breath still rules the twilight of morning and the Moon with her frosty glow still rules the twilight of evening.

New warmth will come quiet in the sunshine as the blooms start to emerge and the birds herald the beginning of spring. Renewal and rebirth are soon to be at hand. The sunshine beckons...