I Visited New Saint Andrews College!
Glori's Journal: Entry #1
Note: apparently this post is too long for email; I don’t blame you if you don’t finish it, but if you do want to read it all, you should just be able to go to the website/app to finish reading it.
Introduction
I visited New Saint Andrews College (nsa.edu) on January 31st and went through the official “preview day.” This is written as a journal entry, not as a formal post; so the following is my informal (and quite annoyingly sarcastic, in my opinion) writing voice; I hope you enjoy!
If you’re looking for more formal thoughts on my NSA visit, please leave me a comment! I would love to write a more in-depth analysis when I have more time—for now, I’m just journaling this down in order to remember.
Actually, I’m writing this because everyone in real life gets bored really fast of hearing me talk about NSA—I’m a little obsessed. So… happy reading I guess? If you make it through… this journal entry is absurdly long, but I want to remember what happened. It’s also a lot of my thoughts on paper, so congrats whoever makes it through—this is a very simplified version of what goes on in my head all day long.
Some background: I’m a gap year student who applied to NSA in 2024 and was accepted for the 2025 academic year. I’m going to NSA this fall; I just wanted to write this for fun—and to remember!
The Week Before Preview Day
The week before heading up for the preview, I was working on my financial aid application request letter which was due on February first. That was all well and good, no stress or anything until NSA told me that I might be able to apply for an exception to one of the scholarships. That meant I had two more essays to write, one of which would be converted to a video. No stress, right? Wrong! I had a week! The financial aid request letter and the exception request letter were fairly similar, and my dad was able to hack them to bits to make them better, and I turned them both in on Wednesday. The video was what really gave me trouble. I’m not gonna go into detail since apparently I’m not supposed to divulge stuff (at least judging from what others who have done the scholarship competition have said), but let’s just say that the final video I turned in featured my little sister and a stuffed Smeagol. It’s not even anywhere near top tier, and I won’t know if they even are considering my request for an exception until about March. Even if they do decide to consider my video for the scholarship, it probably won’t win and all the stress was for nothing. Well, even if I don’t win, at least now I have a clip of my little sister burping Smeagol to use at her wedding to embarrass her or something.
For context (this is my birthday present. All day I resisted the urge to go up to people and say “it’s our birthday present, precious!” in a Smeagol voice, which, I’ll have you know, I can occasionally be very good at!) this is what my sister was cuddling in the video:
Anyway, so I wrapped those three things up and got them turned in (even if I wasn’t super happy with all of them). The great and stressful weight on my shoulders was lifted and I finally started to look forward to the weekend!
I worked a half day at work on Thursday and then left in the afternoon. We drove through Moscow and stayed the night with my aunt and uncle in Palouse. We ate tacos for dinner; while I was there I started Douglas Wilson’s Get The Guy: How To Be The Kind of Woman The Kind of Man You Want To Marry Would Want To Marry—I got it for my birthday! It’s on my reading list for this year—I believe I called it the pre-NSA bucket list. I also finished The Hero’s Guide To Storming The Castle (which is book two) and started book three of the series, The Hero’s Guide To Being An Outlaw. I started them while in the busy stressful period I mentioned above. They are humorous and light, perfect for a destressing read! My sister and Dad also went on two runs; one in the evening when we arrived, the other in the morning before we left.
DISCLAIMER!!!
I don’t know most of the people very well that I met up in Moscow and I like all of them very well; everything said here is meant to be good-natured teasing and not to be taken seriously or held against them or me.
Hello Preview Day!
I arrived in Moscow, Idaho accompanied by my father and sister, with two pancakes in my belly from breakfast. It was snowing. My dad got lost straight off and I had to actually use the words “right” and “left” to tell him where to turn! (Yes that was sarcasm. I’m bad at directions, so I was pointing, and then realized I was in the back seat! He couldn’t see where I was pointing! I blame it on being a violinist (or past violinist? (Whatever.)))
When we finally arrived at NSA’s parking lot, it was still snowing, or slushing, whatever. It was cold and miserable and my sister had forgotten her coat (along with her toothbrush, and floss, and money, and Bible… and a lot of other stuff). So my dad gave my sister his coat, and we trekked across Jackson street (why does Moscow have so many one-way streets?) and tried to find the Pierian Gallery. In my defense, I knew where it was. Apparently I’ve spent a lot more time studying maps of Moscow than is normal, because my dad had not the slightest inkling as to its location. I just wasn’t sure where the gap in the buildings was to get from Jackson over to Main. Other than Friendship Square, that is, where is we eventually ended up cutting through to Main.
From there it was an easy (although wet) walk over to the Pierian, where there was coffee and donuts. I wanted a donut but had just brushed my teeth so ended up not having any. Drat. Oh well. I wanted to lose weight anyway, right?
So I got signed up for classes (Sophomore Latin and Philosophy) and got my cute little folder and a name tag, which I promptly stuck on my shirt under my sweater under my jacket and forgot about. My dad and sister ended up signing up for the same classes as me.
Then, after I met a couple other of the preview students and the lovely Miss Isabelle Landis (unfortunately my admissions counselor was sick and unable to make it) and explained my gap year situation probably about five times, we sat down and listened to Dr. Merkle talk about NSA. Since I’ve already been accepted, I might’ve zoned out on some of it since I’ve heard a lot of what he was saying on their YouTube channel and blog.
After Dr. Merkle finished up, the preview kids split into two groups and headed opposite ways to tour the campus. My group went with Caleb Salmon. I had a girl named Madelyn (could’ve been Madeleine, I dunno) in my group who was also a gap year student and somebody who had taken LOS classes! (Although it sounds like she was a full-time student, unlike me.) She knew a couple people I did too! We got along swimmingly, I think. I never can tell with anyone.
And through this whole thing I’m dragging around this canvas bag full of stuff (including my knitting) and my beautiful be-stickered waterbottle. (Waterbottle needs a name at this point, it’s a whole character in my personal story.)
Wet Walks; Up Stairs And Down Stairs
We headed up to North Campus first. Having already visited (informally), in December, I knew my way around somewhat, but enjoyed listening. Caleb Salmon kept telling us to ask questions, so I asked how many students had fallen down the stairs. He said he wasn’t sure, but knew of one at least — himself. Then he told us not to add to the number. Unfortunately, I’m almost certain I will, because this morning I dropped a bowl on top of a water jug and broke the water jug. I’m clumsy. I can almost certainly guarantee that I will fall down at least one of the many sets of stairs at one of NSA’s campuses. And I’m not kidding, either. There are many, many flights of stairs, up and down and all around. It’s a maze in South Campus.
We left North Campus and headed back south to South Campus! By this time my feet in their thin little black ballet flats were freezing. Thankfully we soon arrived in Sword and Shovel, which is the coffee and bookshop run by NSA. Unlike Bucer’s, it’s really open and airy, which causes the coffee scents to mostly dissipate. At that point, we got to sneak through the secret door back to the library. (It’s not really secret, it's just kinda small, and locked).
I walked into the library and instantly smelled books. It was amazing, and my nose was in ecstasy. Caleb Salmon showed us around South Campus, including the teeny-tiny kitchenette in the Commons (or whatever they call it, I don’t remember) that’s the closest thing NSA has to a cafeteria. One guy in the Commons was wearing a hall scarf.
After the Commons, we went up (guess what!) more stairs. There we saw the pidge room (I honestly don’t remember what they called it, but it had a bunch of little cubbies for students, I’m also probably spelling pidge wrong), and the freshmen wall of pidge cubbies was huge (cause there’s like 108 of them). There were about ten seats in the middle of the room, like a waiting room, and I’m pretty sure at that point Caleb had me pegged for a goofball (which is not me, by the way, sarcastic comments just tend to pop out at inopportune moments) ‘cause of the dumb questions I kept asking, for instance I said something like “Is this where the students sit when they’re in trouble?” I think he said yes, which was kind of sobering, but also funny. He told some kind of story about the pidge room, and then we walked through the faculty offices and back into the library down more stairs!
Back To School
Then we split ways into classes. I (and my dad, and my sister, and another girl from the preview day; I forget her name) went to Sophomore/Junior (I think it was mostly Sophomores though) Latin Class. It was amazing—the entire class was conducted solely in Latin! Thankfully (because I haven’t taken Latin in three years) a couple students every now and often would write on their whiteboards a summary of what was going on in the class. It turns out they were doing Apuleius/translating the tale of Cupid and Psyche. I was familiar with it, so after I was informed about that I was able to pick up a lot more of the context. Before I was informed, I kept wondering why the class kept talking about sorores (sisters). You see, I’d taken Spanish in the three years, and Latin and Spanish have several similarities, so I was able to pick up a lot of words, just not string them together. Then it all made sense. Latin class might be funner than I initially thought. However, I’d forgotten about the Latin sentence order because Spanish is fairly informal and has similar word order to English. Even if it’s a bit different, usually even if you mess up people will understand what you mean. My theory is that because Latin is dead, it hasn’t had time to shift with the times and become more flexible.
During Latin class, I knitted and dad got my sister a chai from Sword and Shovel.
I’ve only gotten to eleven o’clock on Friday! For that was when we got up from Latin and moved to Philosophy, which is a Junior class. I ran into a couple people I knew there, one from our church. I settled in for another hour and started to knit. They were reading some book about the fall of Satan and discussing it. I admit I zoned out occasionally; the conversation didn’t make much sense since I hadn’t read the book. My dad seemed to be interested, though, he actually piped up at one point. I was surprised by how quiet the class was; Latin had been quite loud. Difference between Greeks and Romans?
After philosophy, my dad, sister, and I walked back to the parking lot and I grabbed my tennis shoes (and put them on, with my skirt, yes. It looked horrible, but I don’t think anyone noticed). My sister and I were supposed to go to a rowing practice. I had worked it out and everything. I was pretty sure it was at 12:50.
Then we walked up to North Campus for lunch. Lunch was delicious; chili with cornbread and a brownie. I got to talk to a current sophomore but I don’t really remember what we talked about.
Supposed To Go To Rowing Practice
At about 12:35 my sister and I ditched lunch to go change out of our skirts and into jeans for rowing practice—I was taking her in case it was only guys, though in retrospect I probably would have been fine. I was super excited to get to see one of my friends who was on the rowing team, though I didn’t necessarily know what rowing practice entailed. Would they want us to participate or would they want us to stay far, far away from the equipment? I didn’t know…
I still don’t know, actually. My sister and I went down to North Campus’s parking lot at 12:45, as I thought we’d been instructed. There was no one there. It was deserted. We hung around until about 1:10 (I even had Isabelle Landis text Joshua, the contact I had on the rowing team). I was a bit disappointed.
Conversations With Freshmen When I Was Supposed To Be In Class
So I went back into North Campus and my sister went up to the history class. I ran into some people I knew from my previous visit. Kaelem, Caedmon, and Carter, I think. Those guys should start a band or something. They’re even in concert choir—so they’ve got the voices for it too.
I believe we touched on the inauguration, Carrie Underwood, trashy country music, (maybe you can see the conversation arc?) and I’m not sure what else. At some point my former classmate, Andrew (yeah don’t try to keep track of all these people, I can’t either), walked by and tapped me on the shoulder. Didn’t say ‘hi’ or anything, just tapped me on the shoulder and walked to class past me. I swear he was guffawing on the inside though. He wasn’t even surprised to see me — oh yeah, that’s right, I texted him on Thursday, forgot about that.
My sister kept coming down and telling me to get to history class. I finally did and sat down for like two minutes, then got up to use the facilities (fancy word for the loo). When I got out the history class had been dismissed. Oh well.
I went back downstairs. While I’d been away, a couple more people had showed up at the freshman table in the entryway. I recognized two or three of them. The first was Taylor Kwan; I said hello, but he seemed rather distracted and anxious, which I learned was due to his having declamations that afternoon. There was a girl helping him—Elanor, whom I soon made the acquaintance of. Shortly another girl I had met (but didn’t remember her name) showed up. We reintroduced ourselves, turned out her name was Raeme. Still don’t know if I have the spelling right, but oh well. There was also at one point a girl named Aileigh there, who’s a former Logos student.
The third person? Well, his name is Jacob, and he lives at Bywater (with Andrew and Taylor). (Of course, I could be wrong on the spelling.) But I didn’t remember that. I only remembered that Andrew and Taylor had two Asian roommates named (I thought) Stefan and Jacob (or Joseph).
So I said “hi” to Jacob, and said “you’re Stefan, right?” He gave me a weird look, so I said, “um… Jacob? Joseph?”
Turned out his name is Jacob, and his roommate is Steven. Not Stefan. I think Jacob is now mad at me; he made some mention of me not mixing him and Taylor up (yes Taylor is Asian too; I’m not sure why there are so many Asians at Bywater (not to be racist or anything—don’t worry, racism will come up later)).
Then I met another of the Bywater inhabitants (not another Asian, at least to my knowledge). If memory serves, his name is Evan. He’s one of the sophomores that hides on Bywater pizza night. He seemed intent on embarrassing Jacob by calling him (if memory serves) Peanut Butter Honey Rice. Let it be preserved for the generations, or let it slip into memory and die. Evan was pretty nice otherwise.
Eventually, some of the table slipped away. I was left to converse with Elanor and Raeme and Aileigh. My sister came down at this point and tried to find my dad, who was in a parent meeting. She walked past the student classrooms and must’ve walked past the one Andrew was in, cause in a few minutes my sister asked to see the phone, and was wondering why there was a text from someone who had said “I see your sister is with you.”
Then my sister went back upstairs and I lingered, hoping to catch some of my friends on their way upstairs to Disputatio (also known as Dispy/Dispi to NSA students). My strategy worked, except it didn’t catch the one guy I was wondering about. At this point I was thinking maybe John was sick, because I didn’t see him for rowing practice or wandering around North Campus and at that point I’d seen literally everyone else I knew in the freshman class.
So I did catch Maria (more on her later), and then Andrew, on their way up to Dispy. I gave Maria a hug, which she returned, and then asked me to remind her of my name. Oops, I guess, but she didn’t seem to mind, and we got along just fine after that and it was fun when Andrew showed up (he thinks he’s six feet tall now).
Somewhere in there I was invited to Bywater pizza night—it may have been by Maria, not one of the actual Bywaterians, but nobody seemed to mind when I showed up… more on Bywater later!
Heh… apparently I like writing about people I know, because that section was huge. I don’t blame you if you skipped that.
Disputatio—Declamations
So I sat with Andrew and Maria during Dispy. We sung an hymn (I don’t remember what it was, but I didn’t know it) and then were seated.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I finally found John and asked him what in the blue moon had happened to rowing practice. He looked really confused at this, and I don’t blame him, but he explained it (and I’m glad he did!). It turns out rowing practice was scheduled at 12:10, not 12:50. So I was sad for a little bit, but realized quite quickly that there was really nothing I could do about it. Oh well.
What was on the menu for Dispy that day was Declamations, which is where six students (two from each hall) get up in front of the entire school and take turns arguing.
You can watch the Declamations right here—or read my disjointed retelling (which, to be honest, will probably be quicker than watching the video, which is almost an hour long!)!
That day’s discussion was “should the US be giving jobs to foreign workers that are better qualified than insourcing less competent workers?” Or something like that. There was a lot of talk about H1B Visas tossed around; I must confess I didn’t quite understand it all.
The first speaker, on the affirmative side, was the aforementioned Taylor Kwan, the only freshman who made it into the debate.1 That on its own got a lot of cheering from the crowd; the fact that he was in Ashdown prompted a lot more, because Ashdownians are really loud.
Edit: according to the video, Jericho’s cheerers were louder (One even yelling “Let’s Go Jericho!!!!), but my earlier supposition still stands, especially given my experiences at Bywater.
He had an entire speech before the debate, written out all nice and everything, but according to his classmates, he trashed the whole thing (deciding it wasn’t good enough) right before the debate and memory-palaced the parts he liked, improvising the rest. That taken into consideration, his speech was impressive. However, if you didn’t know that—I didn’t until after the debate—his speech was good, but lacked these qualities:
Volume—Taylor needed to either lean in closer to the microphone or project louder.
Passion—to me, the speech felt deadpan. I’m guessing that it’s hard to practice a speech and passionately deliver it when you’re improvising. This goes hand in hand with confidence—
Confidence can add a great deal to a speech or argument. I think what kept Taylor’s speech from being stellar (as I think it could have been with a little practice, which, I think also was lacking) was a lack of confidence. He kept pausing and “stuttering,” restarting sentences, which takes away a lot from the memorability and convincingness of a speech.
Not mentioning Seattle. I hate Seattle. Sorry, Taylor, this one’s personal, other people probably didn’t care.
So I think that a lot of these things come with time, and next year Taylor will do great, once he has a little more experience. And maybe wisdom to not toss his speech out the window right before he starts—that really isn’t a great time to decide that it’s no good. So I wrote up a small criticism of Taylor’s speech because he was the only speaker I knew. So congrats, Taylor, you’re special! Heh.
Who is this Taylor Kwan? Glad you asked! Take it from his own mouth—in other words, go subscribe—he’s a poet, philosopher, and um… Asian?! Taylor Kwan
Also, I suspect that if I compete and actually get to Declamations, I will be a lot less eager to critique Taylor’s speech in his freshman year. So I gotta get it out while I can! Heheh.
Anyway, Taylor was the affirmative speaker for Ashdown. The next speaker —Jonathan Adams (thank you NSA for posting that video! Also, I looked back on earlier Declamations and he’s been in them before and got second place as a freshman… winning weapon, eh Jericho?)— was on the negative side, from Jericho. I don’t remember much about him save that he was blond and had a red tie. Him I can see as a Slytherin, he had that expression about him. Spoiler—he also won second place in the debate. Anyway, so he made an argument peppered with a lot of sarcastic remarks about Taylor’s speech, and then it was Malta’s turn for an affirmative speaker—this was the third place finisher, and I don’t remember him much either—name of Davin Ungar. The fourth speaker, Dexter Kaufman, cycling back through the halls, was from Ashdown, arguing for the negative. I think he did fairly well, but he didn’t place. The fifth speaker finished in first place—her name was Miriam Barreth, and I stayed at her place while in Moscow, she’s a senior and in Jericho, great girl (oh dear… it appears Miriam has also previously been in Declamations (though I don’t think she placed)… Jericho does seem to reuse its speakers!)—and I think she did deserve the win, though the guys at the Shire didn’t seem to think so, but more on them later—and the last speaker, from Malta, was another girl, Joy Anderson, British. She didn’t place. Then Taylor, who was allowed back on stage for some reason, spouted out a lot of words in 50 seconds and not a lot of convincing—Taylor, you should’ve cut straight to the point instead of trying to be funny. They get it, 50 seconds isn’t enough time to waste on pleasantries.2
The funny thing about a lot of these speakers was that they were sourced from foreign countries. Davin, and Miriam are Canadian, I believe, while Taylor is an Asian Canadian who lives in Washington and is currently residing in Idaho (yes I know, I just think it’s funny), and Joy is British. Either Maria or Andrew pointed out the irony of most of the speakers being foreign talents—thus, I believe, proving the affirmative’s point.
So Jericho won, and Malta came in a distant second, with Ashdown totally smushed in the background. I’m not gonna beat on Ashdown (too much, that is) because it houses some of my good friends and truly awesome people, even if they lose everything. I’m going to avoid criticizing any of the houses too much, actually, until I find out which one I’m in, because if I did my words might come back to hurt me. Also Ashdown lost too badly for me to have the heart to make much fun of them.
We wrapped up Dispy with the singing of the doxology, then I bailed on visitor questions and ran out the door to go sing Psalms in Friendship Square, which, I was informed by Maria, is a weekly occurrence.
Psalm Singing in Friendship Square
I got out the door of North Campus and it was raining, so once I got down to Friendship Square, I ditched my bag and waterbottle in Sword and Shovel and was given a sheet of songs.
Psalm singing was a bit more miserable than I anticipated. The first time I did it (back in December), it was freezing. This time, it was freezing and raining. Paper sheets of music didn’t do super well in the rain, and it wasn’t light rain, either, so by the end of the singing I was getting PTSD of wet books—one of a bookworm’s greatest nightmares.
I still loved singing in Friendship Square, though. Perhaps it was the element of friendship (heh!), the shared misery of wet pages and wet selves, the huddle in the rain, the joy of praising God even in terrible weather?
Maria said she was going to be there, but I never saw her there. I did see my friend from Seattle, though—Genevieve (yeah, I mentioned I hated Seattle earlier. It wasn’t because of Genevieve—actually, she and Trinity Church were the only bright spot in that pit). We seem to run into each other even though we don’t plan anything. And John, too, and Miriam (from the debate earlier, who was supposed to pick up my stuff, but it didn’t work out)—actually, I also saw the second-place finisher from the debate, the guy I said looked like a Slytherin? Jonathan? But I never introduced myself.
After we finished singing, getting increasingly wetter, I ran inside Sword & Shovel and grabbed my stuff and ran outside to talk to Miriam, who had been joined by John. Yes, they are both in Jericho. By the way, Jericho’s color is green (perhaps why it’s compared to Slytherin by those who dislike it); Malta’s is black; and Ashdown’s is red.
Then I was whisked off to go to dinner with my dad and sister with some old family friends. The plan for after dinner (for me) was to head over to Bywater, while the family friends and my dad and sister were going to go see the play. Being a social girl, I had been looking forward to spending more time around NSA people and didn’t really want to go to a play when I could have a great time with my friends.
Dinnering
So we headed over to the Kings’ place to have dinner. They have a current NSA freshman at their house named Annabelle, and also had some former NSA students (I think) over to dinner as well.
So Annabelle and one of the Kings’ daughters, Catie, who is about my sister’s age, informed me that NSA students call The Sword And Shovel “Swovel.” Um… I’m not really sure how to spell it, though. It’s like a terrible ship name (Percabeth, Keephie (this is proof that I have had my share of teenybop pop fiction novels, don’t use it to blackmail me) and whatnot), but whatever…
So dinner was lovely, but we were quit of it soon, for the play started at seven. A bit of drama ensued as my dad tried to find Miriam’s house to drop off my stuff, but we couldn’t find it because I had remembered the wrong street address! I told my dad it was on Jackson street! Guess what? It was actually on Jefferson street! But my dad was worried about being late to the play, so he just drove me to Bywater (someone put it on Google Maps, by the way, so you can go look it up!)
Bywater!
So I checked if there were any girls at Bywater (thankfully, Maria was there!) and asked if they minded me bringing my stuff in (I think I blurted something confusing out trying to explain my situation), and they said no, and even asked if I wanted help! I said no, but in retrospect, I should’ve said yes, because I had to awkwardly haul three giant bags of stuff up the stairs into the house and stuff them behind the huge chair in the living room.
As I walked into Bywater (after seeing the STOP sign nailed on their front door), there was Andrew at the counter, making pizza. Maria was hidden in the corner at the table. Taylor was sitting down at the table too, guffawing. Boy, he’s loud. This is a fact. There were some other boys, too. I believe they were Caedmon (who was introduced earlier, I’m fairly sure he was there), Jeremiah, Isaac, Joshua, and Jack. Jack is Asian and the adopted brother of Joshua, who’s a blond guy who’s definitely not Asian. Jeremiah is a slight fellow with dark hair and little round glasses whom I have heard compared to Harry Potter, though I can’t see it. His nickname is Maryland, because he’s obsessed. He also looks about sixteen but I kept questioning his claimed age (nineteen) until he showed me his driver’s license, and he is as old as he says he is—nineteen, which is really crazy. I kept thinking Isaac’s name was Simon, or Simeon, and got into trouble for it with John, but that was later. And now I remember his name? Seriously, brain? I don’t think there was currently anyone else at Bywater, just eight of us—another guy showed up later, but I do not remember his name (yeah, I’m lost too!)!
We chatted for a while (we had a discussion of the Hobbit movies in one part, I believe, along with names (Taylor’s being mistaken for a girl; Jeremiah’s girlfriend’s, Charlie, being mistaken for a boy), then Taylor pulled out a table and a game called Cards Christians Like, which is basically Christian apples-to-apples. There was a whole bunch of lore bouncing around involving Allen (another guy I’d met previously; I bumped into him briefly at Dispy but didn’t see fit to mention it). He’s a tall, darker guy with a fondness for swords and midieval (I’m not entirely sure of the spelling!) knights and The Lord of the Rings (although most people at NSA do the last one). Apparently he likes to dub random things “heresy.”
I’d like to write our conversation down, but it was full of hilarity, and I’m sure, stupidity. Highlights (while playing Cards Christians Like) included:
Taylor and another guy arguing about which end of the table was the head—Taylor obviously thought wherever he was sitting was the head of the table, and also added that the chair with its back to the door was the head. The other guy (Caedmon, I think) then brought up the point that his chair had its back to the kitchen door. “It doesn’t open,” said Taylor, “so it doesn’t count.” Andrew then pointed out that it actually does open, and proved it. Then they dropped the argument, thankfully.
Me complaining to Andrew that ever since I’d been to Bywater in December, Amish Paradise had been stuck in my head, combined with Stressed Out (The combination is absolutely awful). (Context: Maria is ex-Amish.) He immediately pulled out his phone and played it, singing along. Apparently the song gets played whenever she dies in Mafia.
Andrew wearing a weird helmet and me calling him Buckethead. The below is the helmet, worn by somebody I’m fairly sure is Andrew3. You gotta agree, it looks like a bucket mated with Darth Vader and had a child… (he was breathing like Darth Vader as well)
The game having the card “I’m good with watching R-rated movies as long as there isn’t ______” One of the cards was “pre-marital eye contact,” and that was what won! There was a bit of confusion among the boys as Jack (the Asian one) was only fifteen (he looks much older…), and another of the cards was “innuendos,” and he didn’t know what that meant. So there was a lot of very funny dodging around the question until one of the boys finally explained it to Jack—I still think maybe it didn’t make sense to him though.
Eventually the door swung open and in trooped our missing crew: Raeme, Aileigh (It’s pronounced Ai-lee, not Ally, I got mixed up a lot), Jubilee, the afore-mentioned Allen, Kaelem, and John. There was also a couple (freshman!) with a baby—they were married before college. We quit playing Cards Christians Like (I was kinda getting bored of it anyway, I mean it was funny and all, but I didn’t get a lot of the references), to mingle.
Mingling didn’t take too much time (during which I noted my observations about Taylor to John (namely that he’s loud—not a bad thing, he just is), and John confirmed). I also found out that not all the Bywater boys are staying in Bywater next year — hopefully Bywater pizza night still exists, because I want to be around for that.
At one point—between Cards Christians Like and singing, the entire house started singing the national anthem—The Star-Spangled Banner. I found it inspiring—young Christian men and women—Asian, Canadian, American, whatever—standing in a house together after having eaten and played games together, belting out the National Anthem… and proceeding (as the next paragraph will tell) to glorify God.
Shortly, Taylor pulled out the Cantus Christi 2020 hymnals and we got singing. I got squashed in an awkward corner, moved, got squashed in an awkward corner, moved again, and ended up still feeling awkward (someone asked me “you gonna sing bass?”). When it’s a majority of guys, I guess I never know where to stand. I also may have—accidentally (well, not really)—brought up vocal tech. Oops.
We sang some songs I knew and some I didn’t, then wrapped up with the doxology. Andrew and Allen, the guys I could hear because they were right behind me, sounded pretty great—I think Andrew’s voice has improved.
After that, we split into two groups, once larger than the other, downstairs to play Root and upstairs to play Mafia. The Mafia group was bigger and led by Taylor; while the Root group was led by Andrew; it had maybe five people but I got the sense it was dominated by Andrew and Maria—I did not come with them. So I don’t really know what was going on downstairs, except that it started off with Andrew loudly playing He’s A Pirate on the piano (like he does every Sunday on the piano in the gym when he’s home) and involved a lot of loud arguing between Andrew and Maria.
So we got going on Mafia after Andrew, Maria, and the couple others who were crazy enough to get in a game with them (I believe Jeremiah was among the number) went downstairs. I was very happy—I got to be Mafia in the first round, along with Caedmon—there were enough players to have two mafias. In the game, there was a role called Linker, in which a player ‘links’ two other players together at the start of the game—meaning that if one dies, both die. The name immediately got changed to Matchmaker—which immediately insured that only the most daring of players would link a girl to a guy—while I was there, no one did. Not to say it won’t happen in the future—I’m sure it will, and I’m sure it will be hilariously awkward when it does.
There were also a bunch of other roles, one of which was the “Jester.” The Jester’s goal was to get killed—if the Jester was killed, he or she won. Unless, it turns out, the Jester was linked to another person and the other person was killed—apparently then it doesn’t work, but I am a novice at this game.
So we begin. I was given the Ace—mafia. Taylor—supreme high director of the game, apparently—put us all to sleep (heh that sounds weird said like that!) and had the two mafias wake up. Immediately one of the girls started squeaking “no, don’t kill me!” It was Jubilee, and of course, we killed her right away. If you say something like that in a mafia game, I almost can guarantee you’ll get killed.
We proceeded forward and I think John began to suspect something, because he kept accusing me (subtly, but not to the others, for some reason) of being the mafia. I eventually tried to get people to kill Caedmon to deflect suspicion, (maybe my logic was slightly faulty?) but it didn’t work, and instead John was put to death unfortunately—I say unfortunately because he was the Jester—actually, before the end of the game, I’d thought Aileigh was the Jester because it seemed to me she was dramatically trying to get herself killed, but now I’m thinking maybe she’s just dramatic—which is not a bad thing; I can be very dramatic. If you remember from earlier, he’s supposed to get himself killed to win—and that is just what he did—he did a stellar job of it too, apparently, because Taylor said he’d never had a Jester win before. Partway through the game, Allen had wandered in and sat next to John, and whenever a vote was called, he would raise his hand (because he wasn’t playing, he wasn’t supposed to vote), causing much frustration from John—and a lot of laughter.
So, since John had won, and the mafia (who were pretty close to winning) had lost, we started another round of Mafia! I drew the seven, I believe, which was the Matchmaker card. I was sitting directly between John and Allen and, not knowing what else to do, stuck them together (I didn’t really know any of the girls). I imagine they weren’t too pleased when they found out, but unfortunately I had my eyes closed—because of the game—so I didn’t see their reactions.
For some reason in the next game, I was the first one killed. Aileigh and Isaac (at one point I dubbed him Simeon (he seemed like a Simeon to me) and was called racist by John for some reason he refused to explain) were the mafias—or, as Taylor calls it, mafifi (is that spelled right?). I’m not entirely sure why they killed me first, but maybe I was getting on their nerves. I can do that to people after they’ve known me for a while.4
So Taylor had all the roles down on his laptop—I don’t blame him, it can get hard to keep track of everyone with so many roles—and let me look at them since I died. Turned out John was the Jester again…
Then I went back to my giant chair (which for some reason I’d sat in both times while I was playing Mafia at Bywater) and declared my last words, which apparently were “Who hates me enough to kill me?” I was going to add “who thinks they know me well enough to hate me?” or something of that ilk, but I ran out of breath and Taylor cut me off.
At this point I was getting slightly nervous because I knew that Miriam could be coming to pick me up at any moment as she had texted me earlier. Not nervous because I wanted to leave; nervous because I wanted to stay. More on that later.
So, even though I didn’t like being dead, I did enjoy watching things play out and being privy to everything that happened “in the dark, in the dead of night,” while everyone was “sleeping,” and the mafifi prowled. I also enjoyed having a discussion with John and Allen (though I now remember none of it, unfortunately). Highlights (not in any particular chronological order: cake was dropped on the floor; a sword was brandished; He’s A Pirate and loud arguing resounded from the basement; the cake was picked up; slouching; Taylor danced to music in the kitchen and all but abandoned the Mafia game while we were supposed to be deciding who to kill (of course, we didn’t, and started talking); somewhere in here my getting my wisdom teeth removed came up and Taylor sympathized; John and Jack exchanged insults (clearly there’s a history here); there was some talk of Jubilee, Joshua, Jack, and John; I asked the young lady with the baby (her husband was downstairs) the baby’s name—it was Judah (I love the name!); people were killed and implications made.
The game finally ended—I believe the mafifi won—when Allen was slain and John (linked to him) was killed as well. At that point, a few people started leaving, but Miriam hadn’t showed up yet, so I stayed in my chair and chatted for a couple minutes.
Miriam showed up pretty soon after the Mafia game finished—she had great timing; I gotta give her that! I slipped downstairs and said goodbye to Maria and Andrew—telling Andrew, very accurately I think, that I wouldn’t see him for another couple months. I believe I hugged Maria and told her that, if I didn’t see her again while I was there, I would see her in about six months.
Then I went back upstairs and bid the others farewell. Some of them I didn’t see again on my visit. I took my bags and climbed down the stairs and into Miriam’s car, thanking her for picking me up. We then drove to her place and unpacked my things. She very kindly gave me her room and slept on the couch downstairs—I cannot fathom why, but apparently the couch is very comfortable. She showed me around the house and went to take a shower. While I was waiting to shower, I pulled out my book—The Hero’s Guide To Being An Outlaw—and read a bit.
Shortly after, I took a shower and then went to bed. And that was my Friday!5
Saturday
Well, my watch with the broken band had an alarm set for 6:00; I had lost it in my bag and forgotten to turn it off; so I was woken at 6:00 by a faint beeping. Rather worn out by the previous day—but not too terribly, I had slept relatively well for being in an unfamiliar bed—and knowing that Miriam’s roommates were probably still sleeping and that Miriam was leaving early to go to a Bible study, I stayed in bed and tried to get some more sleep until about 7:00, when I rose, removed my retainers (from braces?), and started reading my Bible and knitting since I didn’t feel quite like trying to find breakfast yet.
When I finished my Bible reading, I pulled out The Hero’s Guide. After a bit of reading, I trekked downstairs, and made myself some instant oatmeal and a glass of milk. There was jam, as well, and I put some in the oatmeal, because I thought it would be like our oatmeal at home—bland and rather sour, actually, needing some flavoring—but it was sweet, almost sickeningly so with the jam added. Luckily, the milk balanced it out—no I did not add the milk to the oatmeal!
I was cold, so I found a blanket and read while finishing my breakfast. Then slowly Miriam and her three roommates trickled in. One of them runs a small hair-cutting business and had a client in that Saturday. We were able to chat a bit about the different halls and NSA-related stuff.
The Sword & Shovel — Lunching — Swovel!
After the girl left, we lingered a little longer at Miriam’s, then Miriam and I drove to Sword & Shovel (Swovel), where she got coffee and chatted with a freshman she was supposed to meet.
We were back in the study chamber at the rear of Sword & Shovel. I read my book—by now I had finished The Hero’s Guide and Get The Guy (I’m not gonna type out the whole title this time)—Brandon Sanderson’s Oathbringer, which is the third book in his Stormlight Archive. So I read some, and I also saw some of my friends, whom I waved at or chatted with for a short while. I saw Annabelle, Catherine, Beatrice, Caedmon, and then when I wandered out into Sword & Shovel, I saw Carter! I spent some time chatting with Catherine (who was working in Sword & Shovel), because we had a bit of backstory—she asked if I had got stranded again, which made me laugh, and I said thankfully no, I have a phone this time and didn’t have to call Andrew! Then I went back into the study chamber and chatted with Beatrice; asked her some questions. I got in some reading of Oathbringer—though I had to get back into the swing of the story after having temporarily abandoned the series a couple months prior after finishing book two—Words of Radiance.
My dad and sister texted/called me a few times during my stop at Sword & Shovel (just typing that multiple times makes me see why students shorten it to Swovel) and I ended up meeting them and some of the Kings at Tapped, which is a restaurant just up the street. There was a weird street fair going on all down Main Street at the time that was obnoxiously loud and also appeared to involve the “lefter” side of Moscow. It ended up being Mr. & Mrs. King, Catie, and Knox, the oldest of the ones who are still at home. We had lunch and chatted. I had a Caesar salad with chicken—delicious!
That morning, my sister had gone running with a senior at NSA and wasn’t feeling too well—pretty tired, I think. She didn’t have anything to eat, but I decided to get her a chai because she needed some caffeine. Catie and Knox went with us; we stopped by Bucer’s to show her around first. Bucer’s smells amazing—my sister said it smells like Starbucks, but, I mean, they’re both coffee shops. We walked through the back and ran into Evan (from Bywater, no I don’t expect you to keep track of everyone)—who apparently is a teacher at Logos, where Catie goes to school. We also caught a brief glimpse of Andrew (him you should probably remember from Bywater—oh right, I said I wouldn’t see him again, but I don’t think this really counts as I saw him for maybe 15 seconds), covered in flour. I think he’s a baker, which is pretty cool—he’s also the one who makes the pizza at Bywater pizza nights. He waved and then—poof!—disappeared into the recesses of Bucer’s kitchen. Speaking of Bucer’s, I heard Maria say something about her getting a job there, so we’ll see how that goes.
We didn’t stick around too long at Bucer’s, but walked back down to Sword & Shovel. It was a little weird walking back through the street fair—I swear I saw a furry—and I’m honestly glad I wasn’t alone—it was the middle of the day, but a lot of people were imbibing.
We walked into Sword & Shovel and saw one of the girls from the Preview day that my sister had talked to! They began jabbering, and in came Carter… again! I accused him of showing up everywhere, to which he responded with a smirk and a shrug. Apparently he knows Catie, so they started talking, looking at music books. While the two pairs talked, I ordered Zion a chai and ran my eyes up and down the delicious shelves of books. Knox sat in a chair and observed—I think he’s a fairly quiet guy, but I didn’t really try to talk to him.
Shortly the chai was ready and we exited the building, waving goodbye to those we knew. We hopped in Knox’s car and headed back to the Kings’, where my sister was planning on taking a nap. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but was thinking about walking back down to Sword & Shovel and spending the afternoon there.
However, as we walked into the Kings’, Annabelle was just heading out the door. She said she could drop me off, and after some consideration, I said yes and hopped into her car, which it turns out has as many problems than my dad’s truck—but that’s endearing, I suppose.
I asked her where she was going, and it turned out she was going to something called Symposium—which is a rhetoric student gathering involving a topic and impromptu speeches and arguments. It sounded a lot funner than hanging out at Sword & Shovel—lovely as that is—so I very spontaneously (I almost never do things spontaneously, so I surprised myself) asked if I could come. She said yes, and we went off to pick up Raeme before Symposium.
Symposium
Symposium was at Maria’s—her you also ought to remember, I think I’ve mentioned her quite a lot—which was over on the development side of town. It’s a great big house and it turned out there were three different groups. I walked in the door with Raeme and Annabelle and the first person I saw there was Carter!
He must have remembered our earlier conversation, because he said something to the like of “I don’t think I’m everywhere, I think you’re everywhere!”
Leaving Carter’s group, we descended into the basement, where there were two other groups—Annabelle’s and Maria’s. I joined Maria’s, which had some people I didn’t know and some I did—Allen, Maria, Caedmon, and Raeme.
The topic for the day was “is it okay to make jokes about being gay?” It turns out that the girls were—mostly—in agreement upon the issue, i.e. they didn’t think it was okay, so they invited some guys—Kaelem, Carter, Allen, Caedmon and maybe a few others I didn’t see? However, their clever scheme backfired because some of the guys they invited—Kaelem and possibly a couple others—agreed with the girls.
As far as I can tell, the prompt was inspired by the fact that a pair of the freshmen have been acting ‘gay’ on the group chat—hearting everything the other one says and all that—and saying it’s a joke. I didn’t quite understand the context.
The second speaker (I missed the first) was slightly incoherent, but hilarious. She had this little rainbow-colored stick that apparently is a joke among her and her roommates. When you jerk it forward it gets longer and darts forward. She called it the ‘gay stick,’ and said that she and her roommates would ‘boop’ it on each other and go “boop! You’re gay now!” She kept emphatically gesturing with it, making it extend several times. At one point it bent in the middle and looked at it and said “oh, it’s not straight anymore.” I’m not sure if she meant to make that pun, but it made me crack up, and Allen too. Actually, I’m pretty sure the whole room was cracking up.
I don’t remember everyone’s speeches, but Allen and Maria did particularly well. Maria—who finds gay jokes hilarious—actually convicted herself. I don’t think Allen was taking the whole thing very seriously, but it was pretty funny observing everybody’s interactions and the class camaraderie. I was also able to interject occasionally and nobody seemed to mind.
The group I was sitting in on was very enjoyable, anyway. As we finished up, someone said “the floor is gay!” and Allen got on the piano bench and one of the girls—Maria, I think—hunched up on the couch.
“Why?” said I.
“Because the floor is gay!”
Then, because Annabelle’s group was not yet done, I went and settled down on the floor in there. I only knew Annabelle and Kaelem6 in here; the group was definitely a lot more toned-down than Maria’s—of course, that should be obvious, I guess. Kaelem’s a fairly quiet guy (I suppose one could call him “chill”), and he’s also one of the youngest freshmen—he’ll leave his freshman year still at seventeen. Crazy, huh?
Anyway, they wrapped up fairly quickly. Annabelle had brought her violin over to play with another girl—I forget which one—and we had to leave soon, but they got a couple songs in—one of which was Rewrite the Stars. I believe I chatted some with the other students; listened to what they were talking about; but my memory is failing me here.
Dinnering #2
Shortly, Annabelle and I headed back to the Kings—me to meet my father and sister, her because it’s where she lives. My dad was sitting on the front porch smoking with Mr. King; my sister was inside, doing dishes.
I chatted a bit with Mrs. King, then my dad and sister and I headed out to eat dinner with an old friend of my dad’s, who had gotten married. It’d been about six years since we’d seen him last; in that time he’d had three kids! They were adorable.
We had dinner there—I was exhausted but in denial at this point because I wanted to go to Shire Fire at the Shire—which is the brother building to Bywater. The first time I went it had been fairly quiet with only a few people there—but they assured me that usually it was a lot crazier.
Tired At Shire Fire
So after dinner my dad dropped me off at the Shire Fire. There were more people there than last time, but none of the same people and I didn’t know any of them. I only recognized the couple with the baby that had been at Bywater the previous night. It was still pretty quiet. There were a couple guys who kept popping in and out, riding a motorcycle or something, I think they were—did I just go into Yoda voice? Ha!
After about half an hour, I got pretty tired and texted Miriam, asking her if she’d come pick me up. She didn’t see my text for a while, so I was stuck there for about another half-hour. I did have some conversation—it turned out a couple of the boys there were from Bywater—sophomores; it turns out they take refuge over at the Shire on Bywater pizza nights.
However, I like Bywater, and most of the guys over at the Shire seemed to have rather a derogatory view of it. Their nickname for Andrew is “the monkey-butler of Bywater.” I know it should be funny—it probably is—but I don’t find it so. Another of them had the perspective that Andrew is the mom of Bywater and Taylor is the dad. Again—accurate? Kinda. Funny? Probably. Funny to me? Not really.
Most of the guys also seemed to dislike Jericho hall—calling it the most Slytherin-like of the halls, and were very surprised when I informed them John was from Jericho.
So, unless the next Shire Fire I attend changes my mind, I very much prefer Bywater. The guy with the baby echoed my sentiments as I left — thankfully, Miriam picked me up, but she parked over at Bywater so I had to run over there.
So we drove back to Miriam’s and I got ready for bed, took a shower and everything, got a little more read on Oathbringer. And that was my Saturday!
Sunday
I got up at six thirty and read my Bible and knitted. My dad was supposed to pick me up at 8:10 to go to church at Trinity Reformed. I tried to go downstairs a couple times to get myself breakfast, but Miriam was still sleeping so I just stayed upstairs and read more.
Miriam got up about 7:45 and I went downstairs and made myself a quick instant oatmeal. This time I didn’t put jam in—I had learned my lesson! It was still a bit too sweet for me though.
At 8:17, my dad and sister picked me up—yes, I checked my watch, because I was worried he got the wrong address again! It turned out Miriam was going to Trinity Reformed as well, so I saw her again there.
Church At Trinity Reformed
We actually got to Trinity Reformed early—last time I’d been there with a friend we’d walked in during the first song.
The liturgy at Trinity Reformed is a bit different from Christ Covenant, which is where I usually attend church. For instance, my church sings a lot of hymns, while Trinity Reformed does a lot of chants and calls-and-answer deals. They sing out of the old Cantus Christi—which is what our church had before we switched over to the Treasury Hymnal.
They also do a “passing of the peace,” which is where, right before communion, the congregation greets other members of the congregation. My sister was a bit weirded out by that. They also eat the bread and drink the wine as it’s being passed around instead of waiting until the end. As they pass the bread and wine they say “the body of Christ broken for you” and “the blood of Christ shed for you” and you’re supposed to say “thanks be to God.” So that’s a bit different, but since I’d already been once, I was prepared. I just forgot that I was supposed to eat it right away, so we were just awkwardly sitting there, and then realized!
The sermon was preached by Yuri Brito (sorry, I know that’s probably the wrong spelling and probably not even close! but I’ve only ever heard it.) as a guest pastor. Usually Joshua Appel preaches.
After the service wrapped up, there was a fellowship hour. I was walking out and walked—smack!—into Carter of all people! (No I did not actually walk into him). To be honest, I had no idea he went to Trinity Reformed. Apparently he’d seen me before I saw him and had been slightly startled. We both thought it was rather funny—he said that he’s not the one everywhere, that I am!—and I guess it’s a running joke at this point!
John was also there, and I said hi to him at one point and asked about the person he was talking to, who turned out to be named Tyler and was also on the rowing team. John then ditched us to do who knows what, but Tyler and I did have a nice conversation. Both of us had this vague feeling that we’d seen the other before—and perhaps it was at Bywater?
Then my dad and sister came and told me it was time to go home. My dad was talking to Tyler, so I slipped away and said goodbye to John7—and Caedmon, because they were talking to each other—about the AI art discussion—is AI art? Unfortunately, I didn’t get the entire low-down on that—I’ve asked him about it since and still haven’t gotten an answer (but I guess he’s probably busy). My dad and sister finished up pretty fast with Tyler and came to get me. I shook hands with both Caedmon and John and left.
We headed home, south down the highway and were home in three hours. It was good to be home, but I couldn’t wait to go back to Moscow—I had indeed found friends there.8
I’m done with this post, but I will post more thoughts and updates on New Saint Andrews College, so keep an eye out!
I have friends now there, so I can’t help but feel “initiated” into a few of the social circles of the college…
I’m looking forward to beginning this journey of college this August at New Saint Andrews!
nsa.edu
Thank you for reading this post! God bless!
—Gloriana
Taylor, if you’re reading this, please understand that my criticism is meant well.
Same as previous footnote. I do think you did well and you absolutely do not have to take my writing seriously.
Andrew, I seriously doubt you’ll ever show up on Substack, and also seriously doubt you’ll read this, let alone have the patience to read the whole thing, but if you do, you’ll have to confirm.
As I’m sure my narrative voice is doing by this point. I use far too many parentheses, commas, and ellipses, and em—dashes.
Hard to believe that was all only one day.
Kaelem is Malta. All of the rest of Malta hall members I’ve met are also fairly quiet—I think! Malta does seem to have a rather quiet, Hufflepuff air to them. Of course, my experience with Malta is rather limited!
John is easy to find if he’s standing up, because he’s over six feet tall.
Oh, yes, and my water bottle now has three beautiful new stickers! I resisted the temptation to gaze too long at the Hall stickers, as I don’t know which one I’ll be in yet—yes I know I’m obsessing. Bear with me :)
Everything in this is 100% accurate and I applaud you for the correct spelling of my name ✨
Hi, this is the guy in the scarf in the commons. That was hilarious! I read that and was like, “it’s me! I’m that guy!” Also, Bywater will indeed be continuing the game night tradition.