Part II: Dominoes in A Row l l l l l l l l l

First I'd like to make two notes. A. I'll make the last mini-series post on Friday, but it'll be early Saturday Morning for most of you. "B" will be tomorrow

So Thomas left for the summer to take up his job in Kodiak Alaska. Thomas had a cool job working for the Alaska Fish and Game dept. Basically Thomas caught salmon all summer and took samples to send to the lab to make sure they were healthy. But in order to do this he had to live in a remote part of the state. So Willy the pilot (same Willy from Grizzly Man) would fly Thomas and his work partner to a remote base. So Thomas spent most of the summer out of contact with the rest of the world. Which was a problem.

That summer "Jane" was still digging on Thomas. So she tried to continue perusing their seeded relationship. So Jane continued writing Thomas emails. The problem was Thomas wasn't writing back. Now Thomas wasn't ignoring her and trying to avoid conversation, he couldn't writer her back. He couldn't because he was stuck in the middle of the Last Frontier (Alaska) and didn't have an internet connection for most of the summer. Jane took a little bit of offense, but only because she didn't understand the conversation. But neither Jane nor I would see Thomas again for six months, when he would get back from Africa and the situation would be sorted out.

So the next semester I returned for my last semester of school at Harding. I had a light load of classes. At first I tried to load up on Family Consumer Science and intro to Nursing classes for my last semester. I had all the requirements for my degree except for 12 hours of electives. So I scheduled classes that I knew would be full of girls. It was simple. Unfortunately for me I overlooked a requirement for graduation; the upper level hours part. Sure enough, I was a few upper level hours short of the mark. So my schedule was toast and I had to sign up for real classes. Two upper level math classes to finish out my minor and two bible classes for sport; I already complete my bible requirements too. It was that semester that I lived in the "old inexistent" married apartments.

My Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule had me going to chapel at 9, an hour break, then Linear Algebra at 10:45. It left a nice break in the morning. So in the morning I would go get breakfast at the student center. I'd usually pick up a chicken biscuit, roll of chocolate dough nuts, and the very healthy Hershey Oreo milkshake. So by the second week I would sit in the student center after chapel and eat breakfast. One day Jane walked by and noticed me studying for Linear Algebra. She had botany at 10:45 and was looking for a place to study. So she sat down.

I still remember that initial conversation. We were talking and a girl with 6" heels walked by. I heard the clicking of her heels long before she walked behind me. They sounded huge. So after she walked behind me a turned in mid-conversation to see just how tall the random girl's heels were. Jane thought I was checking the girl out and called me on it. I tried to explain, but I don't think she believed me. But it set up a routine that we continued to follow for the rest of the semester.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we would sit and study together before our 10:45 classes. After a few weeks we moved from the Student Center to the more comfortable and less trafficked new addition to the Science building. The truth of the matter was that Jane couldn't really sit in public without people constantly stopping to talk to her. She was just one of those completely friendly people. So the less traffic, more nerdy, science building suited us just fine.

Truth be told we didn't get a whole lot of studying done. Most days we would just sit there and talk about stuff and life. It was fantastic. She was a great person to hang out with. Most of the time we would just sit there and talk for an hour. We would talk about what was going on in our lives. What we liked and didn't like. We became pretty good friends through the whole thing. And I really got to know how cool of a girl she really was. And believe me, she was a really cool girl.

She loved being outside. We went rock-climbing a few times there around Searcy. We'd share camping stories and random cool stuff we learned in class. We also continued going to Prayer Group with a great group of people.

Every Tuesday night I'd swing by her dorm in my new Jeep Wrangler, sometimes with the top down, and pick her up for Prayer Group. Afterwards I'd take her back. One night it was approaching curfew and I had another girl that was ready to go home. Jane was busily talking away. So I took my keys and tossed them at her jokingly. She grabbed my keys and walked out the door and hopped in the driver's seat. Unfortunately she hadn't driven a standard in a while. But I just hopped in the back and let Angela Woo, our Taiwanese friend in the passenger's seat. Eventually Jane stalled it out at a four-way stop with us having the right-of-way. She managed to get the car into the middle of the intersection before it stalled again and a third time. So she panicked and I took over from there. It was a good night.

Eventually my friend Sammer decided that I should ask Jane out. I think he had some help. I really thought about it, and almost did on several occasions. I think I even picked up the phone and dialed her number at one point. But she wasn't in her room. My roommate John had something to do with that phone call. I also went by her dorm room at open house one time as well, a huge Harding step. But the door was closed and I didn't want to knock. Usually a closed door at open house means stay out. I wound up in Jody Miller's room eating peanut butter. Her new boyfriend Steve came by, but that's just a random thought.

Anyway I couldn't ever really ask Jane out. First of all this was Thomas' girl. Thomas was in Africa doing mission work and everyone knew that once he came back that they'd start going out. Everyone. What type of friend would I be to try to snatch a girl why he was away. Remember his last relationship? But I also had another huge problem. I was graduating in 2 months and leaving for the University of South Carolina. She still had at least two years of school left. I was in a pickle. On one hand I would never really have another chance to ask this amazing girl out. On the other hand I had no right to ask her out considering I was leaving and she was sort of already taken, but not officially. And she was a little disappointed with Thomas for not responding to most of her e-mails during the summer.

In the end I didn't do anything. We were supposed to hang out the last week of the semester but it didn't happen. I was busy graduating and she was busy studying. So in December I graduated. Walked across the stage and out of contention. Thomas would be back soon and would make everything right.