Happy Birthday to Me!!!

     For the next 30 minutes it's my 22nd birthday and all I've done all day is study. I have a final exam tomorrow and I've been studying like crazy. It's a core class though, so it shouldn't be bad either way. I haven't really been worried (and I've seen all of the lectures), but now that it's getting close to being tomorrow, I'm starting to worry a bit. Well, there's nothing I can really do about it now. At this point it's more important for me to get a good night's sleep and just take the test tomorrow than stay up worrying about it. The exam is at 2:15, so I have the morning to take care of any last minute studying that I may need to do. 

     Unfortunately, an exam at 2:15 means that I won't be able to watch the inauguration tomorrow. Technically I could see most of it, but if I do I won't be able to do any last minute studying (and I'll probably just think about the inauguration during my final. So I'm just going to watch it online a little later. I'll just be so glad when this  exam is over. Until a meeting today in Quincy, I hadn't been out of my room since Friday. I didn't realize just how much it was getting to me until I got outside today. Granted, it's been helpful that I live on the 5th floor and have been going out on the balcony occasionally, but it's nothing like it will be when I can just go outside whenever I want to. I'm really looking forward to this.

     Rosalia and Liz are leaving for Mexico early Friday morning. I'm glad to have some down time to myself, but I am also really going to miss having them around. Something I'm going to have to work really hard at is keeping myself occupied (but not lonely) while they're away. Basically everyone I know is going away for intercession, so I need to make sure I don't let that drive me crazy. I want to go into Boston one day (maybe more than one) to take some pictures with my new camera that I got for my birthday. :-) That'll keep me busy, at least for a few days.

     Time for bed so that I can get some sleep before my exam. By 6 p.m. tomorrow, I'll be done with this semester. Thank god for senior spring.

Procrastination...or maybe just a break from work.

While I should be working on my contribution to the abnormal psych final exam study guide, I'm procrastinating...big surprise. Perhaps my New Year's Resolution should have been to find ways to stop procrastinating, but I would have just put that off too.

All of my papers are finally finished and I'm fairly pleased with how they all turned out. Granted, if I had started them sooner and spent more time on each of them they would have probably turned out better, but there's only so much you can do when you have a lot of work hanging over your head. You can't please everyone, right?

I'm really looking forward to my birthday, though it's become quite obvious that my friends have changed drastically over the last few months. The people who were at my 20th birthday are for the most part not going to be anywhere nearby for my 21st birthday. Most of them don't even talk to me anymore, largely because they have found a much cooler group of people to hang out with now. But whatever, I have the people I need in my life, and they'll be there.

The Vagina Monologues are coming up fairly soon (weekend of Valentine's Day) and I'm getting kind of excited. My part is not a big one, but it will be nice to do something other than work for a change. I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm also really looking forward to intercession, which is approaching much more rapidly than the Vagina Monologues, but not quite quickly enough (I'm really ready for exams to be over). My last exam is on the morning of my birthday, so as of noon next Saturday, not only will I be celebrating my birthday, I'll be done with Harvard and those responsibilities until February. It's going to be nice having some time off. The only responsibility I have is a rehearsal for Vagina Monologues on January 23rd. It would be nice to just kind of get away from it all, even if it's just for a few hours.

Well, time to get back to work. Wouldn't want to procrastinate for too long, I'm supposed to go the movies with Emily at 9:30 tonight.

I'll be back later, probably with an update about said movie.

Cottage cheese, lost jewelry, and a whole lot of papers

Whoa! What was up with that last post? Hopefully that's the last "thoughtful rambling" I do for a while. But who knows, it might happen again very soon.

I'm not an incredibly picky eater, but I tend to stick to what most would consider "normal" foods. The interesting thing about my food habits is how they have changed since I was very young. Unlike most kids who won't touch spinach and can't stand the thought of brussel sprouts, I liked both as a child, and still enjoy both, though brussel sprouts on a much rarer occasion. One thing that I have always loved (at least as long as I can remember) and that I could still sit and eat a whole container of, is cottage cheese, and when I was younger, people thought that was weird. Now that I'm older, it's normal to like cottage cheese, but very few kids will eat it, probably because it resembles white brains...well doesn't it? Regardless, cottage cheese is one of my favorites, thankfully the low fat version is fairly healthy, especially if it is paired with a fruit like grapes for a snack.

Onto more grim matters. When I was flying back from North Carolina to Boston last Thursday, some unknown member of the TSA (security at the airport) went through my checked luggage without leaving a notice, and unlawfully took two pieces of my jewelry. It was obvious that my bag had been ruffled through as items were rearranged and the buckle was fastened to a different notch than the one to which I had fastened it (I'm a little OCD when I pack), the most telling evidence was the empty cardboard box (one of the small ones designed for jewelry) that had previously contained a pair of earrings my mother got me for Christmas and a very beautiful pendant that Eric got me for Christmas. Although the earrings weren't expensive and the pendant is not altogether impossible to replace, the sentiments behind the pendant meant the world to me. Eric even had the pendant custom engraved and set with a garnet (my birthstone). So to the person who took my pentacle pendant, I hope you enjoy it.

And finally, papers. It's reading period at Harvard, which means that I'm writing papers, and plenty of them. I have a 15 page lab report due tomorrow, two papers due Friday--one for Abnormal Psych and one for Madness and Medicine. In addition to those three glorious papers, I have three exams next week, one Monday, one Tuesday, and one Saturday--my birthday. Either the set of papers or the set of exams wouldn't be so bad alone, but having both on my shoulders is exhausting. With the two papers due Friday, I'm not sure how I'm going to have the time to study for my exams on Monday and Tuesday, but I'm sure I'll manage. The light at the end of the tunnel is my birthday celebration on Saturday night. I'll be free from exams and papers, and I'll be 21.

Perhaps my next entry will be a bit about myself for anyone who happens to chance across my blog. Until then, I guess you'll just have to wonder.