Emily McGuire and the Goblet of Fire -January at Capernwray

The beginning of our second term at Capernwray was way different from what I thought it would be. What I didn’t share in my blog post about all of our joyous adventures in December was that me and my friends actually spent the entire month of December not knowing if we would get a second term together. To make a long story short, there were some unforeseen visa issues that affected all the Capernwray students who were not EU citizens (which was about ¾ of the student body). When we said goodbye at the end of term, we hadn’t heard the final word from the British government on whether non-EU students could come back after Christmas. I am a British citizen, so I would be able to stay no matter what, but saying goodbye to people –possibly forever- 3 months sooner than I ‘d thought I’d have to was quite tragic.

The next bit of news that we got came a few days before Christmas, and it seemed from this update that no-one outside of the EU would be able to return to Capernwray, bringing the number of students down from 151 to about 40. I had foolishly formed my strongest bonds of friendship with North Americans (dang it, guys, why’d you have to be so winsome?) which meant I would be saying goodbye to all my closest friends. It was all very sad. Keep in mind that this is all happening at the same time that I’m spending my first ever Christmas away from my family, so basically I just listened to Hard Candy Christmas by Dolly Parton on repeat and had random outbursts of tears every 5-10 minutes. But I also got to hang out with the Burnley gang, and I was showered with gifts and chocolate, so I’m not going to complain. Anyway, we all know that I actually love crying, otherwise I wouldn’t do it so much.

And then, suddenly, a plot twist came along. While we were actually in the airport on our way to Switzerland, Esther got an email telling her that because she had only planned to attend school for 6 months and not the full year –and thus had come into the country with a student visitor visa and not one of the fancy year long ones- she, and all the other 6-month students could come back. And there was much joy and happiness and we all lived happily ever after.

Alas, that is not how the cookie crumbled. Although this joyous news meant that many of the students were allowed to come back, not everyone who was allowed was able to come back, including Esther. Based on the money she’d lose on cancelled flights and booking new flights, figuring out how to get all her stuff back to England, and most importantly, the fact that she prayed about it all week while we were in Switzerland, she decided not to return. Kenzie, who also had the 6-month visa, also decided not to return. Elena, Braedan and Noah had the full year visa, so they transferred to other Torchbearer schools, leaving only me, Josie and Harrison remaining at Capernwray.

With all this, as well as about 50 other students having to leave or not coming back, and moving into a different room with new roommates, returning was a weird, swirling cloud of various emotions. Everything was so familiar and yet so different all at the same time. It’s like walking through the halls of a house you moved out of years ago. And for a while, it kind of sucked. I missed people a lot more intensely than I thought I would, and despite knowing that things didn’t have to be the same to be amazing this term, it still took some time to adjust. But, throughout this entire ordeal, we had seen countless evidences that God was –as per usual- in control. I really did believe that he intended me to be at Capernwray, and that he intended everyone else to be where they had ended up, so at that point it basically became a matter of chilling out and waiting to see what amazing thing He was going to do next. He’s a pretty cool dude that way.

Apparently the first thing on His Emily’s-Spiritual-Formation-Agenda-2nd-Term was to teach me to rejoice in suffering, because I got resetting tables after breakfast as my duty for the month, meaning that there would be no more getting out of bed 15 minutes before lectures start. It was wretched, but I endured.

Let’s see, what else? Here’s some random factoids:

-One of the girls in my interactive group is from NYC and works at Starbucks, and the other day she told us that she regularly serves Mark Ruffalo. This information was met by much exclamation and fangirling. His drink order is a passion fruit tea, which is very important information for all the people of the land to know.

-Today in Bible Discovery: there are a lot of random verses in Job which, taken out of context are hilarious. For instance, “I will never admit you are right; till I die, I will not deny my integrity” is going to come in really handy one day when I’m arguing with my husband.

Ok, back to the important stuff.

Our first Saturday back, they ran the zip lines and set up a bouncy-castle obstacle course in the sports hall. We discovered that a fun thing to do when you go on the zip line is to let go and lean all the way back until you’re completely upside down. The awesomeness of this technique is amplified by the fact that riding the zip line this way makes you look like a corpse having a grand post-mortem adventure. After the zip lines, we did the bouncy obstacle course. It was one of those where you have two separate entrances and you and a friend race. I always forget how competitive I am until I am faced with things like this. I launched myself through the entrance hole head-first, slamming my face into the first obstacle and scrambling to my feet again. I tore through the rest of the course with much ferocity and flinging of myself hither and yon. When I reached the final exit slide, there was no time to arrange myself into the traditional sitting position typically recommended for sliding, so I launched myself over the top of the slide and rolled down like a woman being cast into a ravine. I won.

Our next big event was British Night. Various people dressed up as their favourite Brit from real life or fiction. I came dressed as Sherlock and wore a scarf so big that I could completely relax all my neck muscles and my head would still remain upright. We drank tea, had a British trivia quiz, played darts and had a challenge to see who could do the best imitations of our Scottish student, and Irish and English interns. I won the English one because the dude I was imitating is from Bolton, which is super close to Burnley, so I basically just reverted to the accent I myself had as a 6-year old. It’s not often that skill comes in handy, but it serves me well when it does.

Our next weekend, a group of us decided to go on a romp through the countryside around Capernwray. But because this is England, it was essentially a sojourn through miles of bog. Two of the girls were wearing black and white chucks, which by the end of the adventure were brown and brown mud clumps. We also saw the carcass of a sheep which looked like it had been torn to shreds by a wolf. Mindful of the dignity this sheep was entitled to after death, one of the girls nudged its jaw back and forth with her foot to make it look like it was talking, whilst she herself provided the voice. This amused all of us to no end. We are all just children masquerading as adults after all.

The last week of January we had a guest lecturer who was the most precious, soft-spoken cinnamon roll of a human being that ever lived. Unfortunately, the gentle, soothing sound of his quiet voice made the already challenging task of staying awake for morning lectures nigh unto impossible, despite the fact that what he was saying was actually quite interesting.

I had a movie night with Natalie and Josie in their room, and because we all wanted to cry, we watched A Walk to Remember. Then, because we had a death wish, we proceeded to watch Bridge to Terabithia, which wrecked us beyond repair. It was worth it though, because Natalie usually restrains herself from crying, and we finally broke her by making her watch it. No-one on God’s green earth is tough enough to withstand Bridge to Terabithia.

We’ve been doing apologetics in lectures, which is super great, because A. I sit next to Anna Rose, who is a borderline genius, and B. we get to sleuth through our Bible to look for solutions to tough questions and generally feel like ultra-cool detectives.

For those of you who are friends with me on Facebook, you will remember that I recently turned in an essay without proof reading it, as I am a woman of faith. Those among you who cringe at the thought of apathy being rewarded will be disappointed to know that I passed. In this essay, I mentioned flannel graphs and compared David’s family life to that of the Downton Abbey characters, so it’s lucky that that went over well . The way I see it, sometimes you’ve gotta add a little touch here and there in your work to amuse both yourself and the examiner. It’s called making your own fun.

Our last weekend in January was preliminary weekend for our 10-day outreach, which is where we go in teams to various churches and work with them for (you guessed it) 10 days. Prelim weekend is when you go down and visit your church and get a feel for what the actual outreach will be like. I had a fantastic outreach team, and our prelim weekend adventures included a paper airplane throwing contest with a bunch of old men, a game that involved trying to pick up cardboard from the floor with your teeth (I rocked at it, but I also caught a cold because everyone was putting their mouths on the same cereal box) and having a conversation about the housing market with a majestic British man named Alistair and pretending I knew what the heck decimalization was. They also fed us constantly with all manner of delicious food, and we drove victoriously home that Sunday night, singing aloud with much enthusiasm to Bohemian Rhapsody and super pumped to go back for 10-day.

My enthusiasm came to a crashing halt however, when I looked at the new duties for the month and discovered that I had been given ANOTHER BREAKFAST DUTY. My tribulations are too great. I cannot go on. Farewell, and thank you for reading.