Evendays

It was a big day at the Evenday’s household yesterday. Son 2 graduated from Beaulieu High School and received the award for best student for the option Math-Physics, a prize that not only honors him, but also puts $250.00 cash into his pocket.

We got to talk to his principal and a couple of his teachers. They spoke of his character and his positive influence on his classmates. We are very proud of him!

Tonight we will celebrate at our place with 20 of his classmates along with half a dozen of his teachers. Beaulieu High School has been good to all of our kids, and for that we are thankful.

Son 2 will leave for Marseilles, France on September 15 in order to follow the spiritual internship that Son 1 received in 2005-2006. After, Lord willing, he’ll start university at Harding, which has offered him a huge, four-year scholarship.

Congratulations, Smiley. We love you. You are a wonderful blessing to our lives. We’re already missing you… 

Sons 1 and 2 and I sang last Friday night with the regional high school chorus. The concert took place in the St. François Church in the middle of Lausanne. A fun building from the 13th century, it stands lopsided (which you only notice from the inside) having shifted over the years because of the surrounding traffic. Acoustics are still good (if the group is good).

 

We sang a requiem composed in 1946 by the Frenchman Maurice Duruflé. A lot of work for the little time it lasts, there are still some beautiful sections. (Gregorian sounding Introit and Kyrie. The Sanctus sung by the women in four parts is heavenly.)

It was the boys’ last concert with the group. Son 1 is swamped with classes at the university and Son 2 will be off to the spiritual internship next year, so neither will continue singing “reinforcement” with the tenors.

I’ve not yet decided what to do. The group of high school teachers who sing backup are tightly knit. A hard nut to crack and hard for outsiders to find their niche. And with the boys gone, most of the motivation for singing with that group has disappeared too.

In order to graduate from High School and continue on to university, Swiss students must present a research paper (at least 20 pages long) or project and then give a public defense. Son 2 turned in his 35 pages of research on the history of polar survival techniques.

His counselor suggested that for the public defense he build an igloo high in the mountains and spend the night in it, so he and Arnaud, a buddy from the Geneva church, waited for the first heavy snow (2 feet) and I drove them up to a jumping off point at about 4500 feet.

Risk of avalanche was terribly high, so they followed a snowed-in road up a couple of miles and, within sight of deserted chalets (chalets aren’t normally built in avalanche corridors) they made camp. It was just below freezing, yet they managed to get a fire going but had less luck with the igloo for, as expected, you cannot construct an igloo out of fresh-powdered snow. (Actually, that’s an old Inuit proverb that comes in handy in many situations.)

They had packed in a tent (polar explorers NEVER count on good luck, only good preparation) and set out to drink gallons of hot tea (in order to stay awake all night). After a couple of pounds of sausage and some cooked apples, they burned the rest of their wood supply and crawled into the icy tent.

Wife and I picked them up this morning at the bottom of the hill. I suggested they stay another night, just to see if they could survive it. It would give them a chance to build an igloo with the now-compacted snow. But no go. They were out of food and Son 2 had used up all the memory in his camera.

Plus, graduating from High School is not THAT important.