Exhaustion, Mystery, and Friends

As VSA winds down, so does my energy. Monday morning I struggled to get out of bed and even found myself clicking the snooze button on my alarm, like I do during the school year. I wasn't the only one who was drowsy—my 17 sluggish classmates and I sunk into our chairs as Dr. Jan welcomed us with her usual pep. Our lethargy surely didn't get past her. She startled us by asking, "Are you guys okay? Am I boring you?" The weekend high got the best of us but Dr Jan knew how to snap us out of it—she reached behind a stack of books and pulled out leftover popcorn, Sour Patch gummies, and M&M's from our movie a few days ago. Munching on snacks cured us of tiredness. 

In class we spent time working on a part of our final presentation, a synopsis of our novels. We participated in a three phase exercise where we first described the location of our novel, then the characters, and lastly we combined the two with a summary of the entire novel. A synopsis isn't simply what one reads on the back of a book, instead it tells the beginning, middle, and end of the novel. It's challenging to condense my entire story into one paragraph without  making it seem mundane.

On Monday night I chose murder mystery as my evening activity. It was a real life game of Clue, we were assigned roles and given snippets of information. The scene was as follows: researchers, professors, and students were invited to the home of Cornelia Vanderbilt for a dinner party, after one of the party guests dropped dead from ingesting poison, it was known that their was a murderer in the room. The cops were delayed by the stormy weather, so the party guests had a few hours to spare to put the pieces together and solve the mystery. The story is a bit convoluted, so I'll spare you the explanation, although unsurprisingly the murderer turns out to be who you least expect. 

Call me Professor Matthews.

Instead of our usual After Class Activity, this week we have an extra hour of free time before dinner. I decided to be productive and used the two hours to work on my summer assignment for AP Literature and work on my novel. With my earbuds in, I sat in a cozy lounging chair and clacked away at my computer. I forgot how much I enjoy time to myself, these weeks have been so busy that I hadn't had time to sit down on my own without the presence of others. As much as I love being with people, I think it's also important to have a fair share of alone time - I bathed in that luxury today.

A view of the evening Tennesse sun.

Tonight, instead of regular dinner we had Proctor Group Night. We went out to dine at Cabana, a local restaurant. What's special about this eatery is that there are booths carved into the wall for customers to sit in, a curtain for privacy, and an aux cord to jam out to music without bothering other patrons. I ordered ricotta ravioli (isn't that fun to say) and was disappointed when I saw a mere 5 pieces on my plate. Although stingy, the food was still very satisfying and I enjoyed spending time with my Proctor Group.

Our journey to Cabana.

Enjoying our meal.