Shalom, y'all!

Back in the Have today after a surprisingly efficient 12-hour drive from Chapel Hill to New Haven. Spent the day doing things with Luna (Elise flew to Louisiana yesterday to ride the tour bus back with Nathan for his birthday): washed my bedding, did laundry, ironed, mended some clothes, wrote thank you notes... Tomorrow I've got church and plenty of work to catch up on!

Today, however, I wanted to share with y'all my St. Patrick's Day with Dinorawr, Gwen's childhood stuffed animal. I got to the sorority house Thursday from Greensboro around lunchtime, caught up with some friends, then went to visit my favorite professor, Laurie, in her office. Laurie Maffly-Kipp is a brilliant superwoman. Someday I'll write a blog about her and her awesomeness, but for now know that she's a huge part of what I'm at Yale (she did her doctorate here and her husband has the same degree from YDS that I'm pursuing).

Anyway, when I went up to Gwen's room, I immediately discovered this bright green dinosaur by her bed from her dinosaur, which she so effectively named Dinorawr in her group. I thought, what other day besides today can we celebrate this creature just for being green? The answer is none. St. Patrick's Day in and of itself is amusing to me, and the fact that we embrace its celebration so ferociously here in the US, so this can also be read as a critique, but I thought he was a necessary companion for all the people I planned on seeing that evening.

I took close to 40 pictures of Dinorawr that evening... he was definitely the life of the party. Special thanks goes out to Spanky's Restaurant for letting Dinorawr behind the bar...

Needless to say, it was really fun being back and seeing people I haven't seen since I left Chapel Hill in May, especially those who abroad my last semester, whom I hadn't seen in over a year. Thanks, y'all, for being such wonderful hosts on my visit home--I cannot wait to see you again.