Very, very early this morning, I woke up feeling like my bed was teetering on top of a rock. It was sort of like the feeling of sleeping on a boat, only it wasn't as calming, and it made my vision skip a little. I was between asleep and awake, and I looked over to see if my roommate was reacting to anything strange, but she was still sound asleep. I convinced myself I was dreaming, so I rolled over and went back to sleep.

When I woke up, I discovered that there had been an earthquake northeast of Rome that was 6.3 on the Richter scale and did some pretty bad damage in some places. I just heard that, as of now, 92 people were killed.

I never experienced an earthquake in my life. It's not like a train riding by your house. It felt like the entire building was being lifted and shifted. My director was concerned about this convent, built in 1200, and said it wouldn't take much to disturb it. Some girls down the hall are convinced that a crack in their wall wasn't there last night. Who knows... thank God it wasn't worse.