Light at the end of the tunnel

Yesterday was the big day of final exams, and I did a good job. They will call me in 2 weeks to personally give me the test results. I felt very stressed before the exam, though I tried very hard to control it and relax, the pressure still affected me much more than I would have liked. But, I studied well and had paced myself so that it paid off. I finished the 6-hour exam in a little over 4 hours...in fact, I was the first one done. But I had been practicing all this week so I knew I would not need all 6 hours and I was not nervous about finishing early. There is always the possibility that the readers will not agree with my essay style or content. If it turns out I did not pass I will have to get additional guidance about how to answer the questions, because I know I did the best I could.

Though I have taken final exams, it's a bit anti-climactic since I have 2 more assignments to finish and the last day of school has been pushed out to December 12.

So, when I came home, I was rather brain-fried and had low energy. I soaked in the tub and then I sat on the couch and read The Autobiography of Santa Claus while Mike cooked me this delicious and gorgeous celebratory dinner!

I was happy to get home from school early, because last night was the Montrose Christmas parade, and since I live around the block from the parade route, I remembered from last year that parking is impossible on my street at parade time. I did not attend the parade, but listened to it since it was spitting distance from my couch. They had marching bands and drums which were very exciting. And Santa Claus flew over my house in a helicopter. Ok, I did run outside to wave when that happened.

Today I am not back to my normal energy level. But I am excited to start back to work full time tomorrow.

I started this year with a list of more than a dozen projects and commitments that I wanted to work on a regular basis. It took a while to realize that over a dozen is way too many. Things went much more smoothly when I narrowed my priorities to a total of three: school, work, and the DAR. This made me feel like I had permission to not do other things, or at least to admit that they weren't priorities, so that when I was asked, "When are you going to do such-and-such?" "How's it going with that old project?" "Why haven't you gone to Europe yet?" I could say, without guilt, that none of things would make it to the top of my priority list until I finished school.

So, as e-e-everyone wants to know what I'm going to do next, I think I've been pressuring myself to find a new priority to replace school in my top 3. I realize now that with school ending Dec 12, and then with holiday travel and celebrating, I really don't need to start a new project until January. Everyone will just have to wait until then to find out what it is.