In which I try once again to catch up

As always, I must apologize for the long delay in posting. My hope is to catch this blog up to the present, so that I can update more frequently, and that without the pressure of months of news, I will be able to tell the more entertaining stories of daily life.
When I left the last post, I had just gotten to the end of the summer, and the Michigan Renaissance Festival. I went straight from there to Chicago and school. During the Festival, I had begun doing reading for my thesis (by begun, I mean, I had a tub with some thirty books, and I read the relevant passages of all of them before school started). Once I got back to school though, the work started in earnest. I was frantically trying to come up with an actual topic, having finally settled on my text, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. In addition to work on my thesis, I began studying American Sign Language, which is incredibly fascinating. That class (which I continued through Spring quarter) ended up being one of the best parts of my year. I also took a far less interesting course called Sense, Sensibility and Sexuality on nineteenth century novels. It was rather disappointing, despite the tantalizing title. The third course was the spot filler which I dubbed the 'please research for your thesis' class. Basically, it allowed me (or any student writing a thesis) to only take two classes, and still count as a full time student. Still, I kept busy.
I was, of course, still working at the library. I got promoted, which meant that I got to play with fun tools. I checked books in, and eventually also got to do data entry--actually, this is not sarcastic. Any task which allows me to sit while at work is a thing to be coveted. The best part was the machine that printed out new barcode stickers. It made very futuristic noises. (hey, simple pleasures are the key to happiness).
One of the other pleasures of this year was a quartet that I organized with David Bevington, who plays the viola (when he's not busy being a world-famous Shakespeare scholar, of course). We recruited a couple of violinists, and had a lovely informal group. We met every few weeks, and sight read every time, just enjoying the music, and not expecting great quality. Afterwords, we would sit in David's kitchen and drink tea and chat. It was really lovely. David Bevington is one of the great things at the University of Chicago. He is technically retired, but teaches almost as often as the full-time professors. His lectures are brilliant. But beyond that, he fosters the culture on campus. He plays in the Chamber Orchestra and supports University Theater, as well as always being up for such ventures as my little quartet. For all of these things, he hosts great parties, with good drinks and boundless food, and usually music. During my second year, he hosted a small party, only for musicians, and we all sat down and quaffed, and sight read, and I felt very bohemian in the best sense. When I grow up, I hope to be half as cool as David, and not just for his excellent scholarship.
I costume designed for the play The Shape of Things, by Neil LaBute. It is a version of the Pygmalion story, with the subject's social clout changed through appearance, set in modern times. It is a good, although slightly traumatizing, play, but costumes are absolutely vital, since they tell a big part of the story. Still, this is the show design of which I am most proud, so it was worth the hard work. I built a prosthetic nose for the main character, who had to undergo a nose job in the middle of the show (eventually, the director decided to have the nose job happen on stage...), and friends of the actor even had time recognizing what was different about his face. I'm pretty proud of that. Of course, all of the costume changes, the nose not least, meant that I had to be backstage every night.
This brings me to what made Autumn quarter so stressful. In the midst of all of these responsibilities, I came down with mono. I was quite sick, but didn't have a diagnosis until the week before the show opened. At that point, I felt that I couldn't let everyone down, so I slogged through. It was rather epic, to be honest. I suppose I must not have had the worst case of mono, since I made it out of bed, but it also required huge amounts of will power, and I wonder who could make a quantitative judgment of how bad one person's experience of a disease is. Someone with a worse case of mono could have more strength of will and do more, but by the same token, someone with a milder case could still spend 18 hours in bed. I certainly wanted to, but felt that it wasn't an option. I also had a lot of scares, for lack of a better word, of worse complications. First, a two-week long stomach ache, which the doctor thought might be pancreitis. It cleared up, and the tests were negative: phew, what a relief. I was also having quite a lot of trouble breathing, which, after it had continued for a long time, made the doctor worry about blood clots in the lungs. A blood test showed something that indicated that this might indeed be what was wrong with me, so I trotted off to the ER for a CT scan, and a five hour period of languishing in uncertainty. Luckily, the scan came back clear. The doctors in the ER were rude and dismissive the whole time, and it was a rather miserable experience. I am very glad that these things ended up being empty scares, but I am also glad that the doctor in the Student Care Center took them seriously and investigated them. It was terrifying at the time, not least the periods of waiting for results. Anyways, thank goodness that's all passed!
Amidst all of this, I dated a boy. The best thing to be said about this is that if one has to kiss a lot of frogs before finding one's prince, well, I'm one frog closer.
I started attending Church of the Atonement, in Roger's Park. This church is *very* high church, to say the least. However, they are very liberal, and everyone is incredibly welcoming (N.B. these things do not always go hand in hand, btw!). I am enjoying it there, and look forward to spending more time and getting more involved now that it's not an hour and a half commute via the CTA. :) I love coming home smelling of incense I continued to attend Brent House in the evening, although I did not get as involved as I had in previous years. I preached once a quarter, which was good practice. Does it ever get less nerve wracking? I would also like the writing process to become less fraught. There were some pretty tough spots. I am told that, on the whole, my sermons were quite good, but I don't have an unbiased opinion on that front.
I think this brings us through Autumn Quarter. I will leave Winter and Spring for later posts (hopefully sooner rather than later though), as this is getting quite long.
Dear readers, should any of you still exist, I thank you for your patience and fidelity. Perhaps the content of these posts can present my excuses as to why I have not written sooner. Otherwise, I can only apologize.
God bless!