I really, really want to go home. I will in...13 days (I even already bought my train ticket and arranged a ride to the train station!) but now any little thing that reminds me that there are, indeed, people that I love who are not with me at the moment - makes me just sad. I'm pining!

I used to always identify that word with "cabin fever." For one thing, in my mind a "cabin" is "a cozy structure made of wood." Pine, then, makes me think of wood. And also, cabins tend to be in the woods. Pine trees! So, I always think of the cabin my dad's half of the family used to own. It was lovely! There was a river right by it and we'd build bridges across it using fallen tree trunks and rocks. You could never tell when it was going to be flooded and the geography of the area was always changing. There were little random berry bushes, Oregon grape leaves, lots of bees in the summer, a certain place where you could jump into the mud and sink to your knees if you happened to be seven and you could pretend you were in sinking sand. There was a place you could climb above the stairs inside the cabin and it was a test of bravery to see how far out you could go. There were king size beds to jump on, luxurious pillows to whack people with, and a typical cabin caved ceiling. I love those.

They sold it, for good reasons, and it's good that they did because at that time our family needed the money from it. But all of us cousins were pretty sad because most of us grew up either living there for some period of time, or at least visiting several times a year.

I ought to be working on a paper now. I kind of already decided to turn it in one day late and get five points taken off - I didn't have time to work on it pretty much at all this last week, and my prof says, "I'd rather have you turn in a good paper late and get five points off than turn in a bad paper on time and get twenty points off." So, it would be due in two hours (but I have chapel for one of those hours) except I already made up my mind to work on it over the weekend and turn it in Monday. Even so, I ought to be working on it.

So far, I have not felt the effects of dropping my workload at all. I get more sleep, generally, because my earliest class any day is 9 now. But I still always have things to do, that just keep piling up. I still feel pretty overwhelmed. This weekend, I hope to get a lot done. Woohoo.

I want to go home. Did I mention that? I do!

I was thinking about the Edgar boys. I love them! I miss them!

And becca - the blanket she made for me has a hole in it and I don't want to figure out if it's fixable so I'm just going to make her deal with it. But the hole makes me think of...the hole in my heart...the hole I have because she's not here! And nobody's here! They're all up in Washington having a fun time!

Why did I ever think I would be able to stand living in Portland over the summer? Bleah! I want to quit school and go home forever!

-Amber