The Darkest Evening of the Year

In 2006, I played secret Santa with my hallmates at school. Before the exchanging of gifts, we all wrote notes to each other and tried to guess who our secret Santas were. I wrote this poem for my recipient, who happened to be my roommate.

Whose room this is I think I know.
He's playing squash in Kenyon, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To tape this note upon his do'.

His roommate, Mo, must think it queer
For me to stop and tape this here
Between the quad and Sunset Lake
The halcyon times of freshman year.

He looks at me with double-take
To ask if there is some mistake.
I tell him not to make a peep.
It's all for Secret Santa's sake.

This room is festive, clean and deep,
But I have GPA to keep,
And papers to write before I sleep.
And papers to write before I sleep.


A year ago, today, I went to a sculpture I like called Return of the Sun, and took a picture of it (above) that can only be taken once a year. My tripod about a kadan longer than I would have preferred, but I'm still happy with how the picture came out.


Today, I went to Stonehenge. Apparently, the public transportation in London was not designed to get people to Stonehenge before sunrise, so I saw it at noon. I was impressed with the engineering. It was a long journey full of changing trains, spending money and walking, but I'm glad I went. It was a fun place to celebrate the days getting longer.