Yesterday was "Culture Day" in Japan, so thankfully we all got the day off! It kind of sucked, though, because it was on a Thursday, which means I have to work today and then get the weekend! The only thing worse is if the holiday is on a Wednesday, which it will be in about 2 weeks…

chyp: What can I say? Thanx! You're a man of few words…

Raya: Matt does seem quite 'dense' about it. Could be because of the relative 'newness' of the situation. Could be because he's in denial. Could be anything… As far as the Book is concerned, I won't tell any lies…

The next day, the brothers began their daily split, as they had been doing since school started. James left the house for the main campus, Emory College, while Matthew and Wesley went to Oxford College. Things at Oxford were more or less the same. The two brothers shared a dorm room again, this time in another residential building, Dowman Hall. They were among the lucky few who managed to get a rather large room located on the end of the hall. Matthew also found it convenient that they were on the first floor. He hated to climb stairs all the time.

Wesley sat through another boring lecture of Modern History 201, watching the clock intensely, trying to will it to move faster. The rebellious red secondhand, however, only seemed to move backwards as if it were intentionally trying to torture Wesley. On and on the professor droned while everyone silently scribbled notes. In his routine manner, Wesley quietly cursed the school for making History a part of the General Requirements as he joined the rest of the scribblers. He hated history for all it was worth, which was nothing in his opinion. So many dates to remember, so many events to recall, so many laws, so many Acts, so many people… The class went on.

Matthew sat diligently at his desk as the class discussed Shakespeare's Macbeth. Throughout the class, Matthew was having strange sensations whenever he touched anything. Once, he had dropped his pencil and a friend of his, Michael Eiland, handed it to him. The moment he took the pencil back, the familiar dizziness returned and when he closed his eyes to regain focus, he saw faint images that looked like traces of Michael. He is playing basketball in the gym. He goes for a lay up and trips over his feet. He falls to the floor, clutching his ankle… But Michael usually played in the evenings… Another time, Dr. Schultz had shaken his hand to commend him on a well-spoken answer, but the moment their hands touched, Matthew's mind was jerked back into this new world of black and white images, racing across his eyes and leaving as quickly as they had come. Dr. Schultz is driving home, but is particularly early. She walks into the kitchen and sees her husband "entertaining" another woman on the kitchen counter. She screams… He shook his head vigorously and tried his best to keep calm as he shook the professor's hand. The rest of the class went that way. He had never felt so…so…intrusive. He kept his hands to himself and as soon as the class was over, he hurried outside the room, but not before he had a chance to talk to Dr. Schultz.

"Great lesson," he said to her. "Have a nice afternoon."

"Thank you, Mr. Hart," Dr. Schultz said. "You, too."

"Are you getting a divorce?" he asked boldly.

"Why yes," she replied. "How did you know that?"

"Um," he thought quickly, "I could tell on your face. My, uh, parents went through the same thing. Just be prepared when you go home today."

With that, he hurried out of the room before she could ask him anything else. He also found Michael and advised him to really watch his step when he played basketball later that day. In addition, he told Michelle Trumble not to order pizza that evening, he cautioned Austin Webb against driving to McDonald's, and warned Holly Rippe that she should get someone to look at her sink faucet…as soon as possible.

James had been having some difficulty in his Chemistry 353 class. Organic Chemistry was proving to be a much more difficult subject than he had wanted. The professor, Dr. Gilkeson, had been nothing short of uncooperative since the beginning of the semester. He answered people's questions briefly and vaguely, often without repeating anything. He expected the students to already know half of what was in the textbook. Worst of all, he had an extremely strict attendance policy. After three absences, unexcused or excused, he would lower a student's grade by two letters. Even more frustrating was the fact that of the other three professors who taught the same subject, one was on maternity leave, another was on paternity leave (he was married to the first), and the third was on sabbatical doing research.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday was a challenge for James. It was a large class due to the lack of other professors. James had trouble adjusting to the larger class sizes. At Oxford, there were never more than twenty-five students in a class. Now, he was fighting for a passing grade with one hundred fifty other students in a large auditorium-sized lecture hall, although no other students seemed to be having as much trouble as him.

"Read the next three chapters for Wednesday," Dr. Gilkeson shouted over the noise of the students as the clock struck three o'clock.

"Why did I ever take this class?" James asked his friend, Adam Toenes.

"Because we need this class to get a degree," Adam responded. "Besides, it's not that bad."

"Well," James said, "not to the smartest kid in the class who already knows everything. To the rest of us regular people, though…"

"Calm down," Adam said. "I know what you mean. He's young. This is only his first year teaching. Give the man a break."

"He should be giving us a break," James said. "There has to be something about him you outright hate. Actually, there's something about him that's not quite right."