(From Left to Right, Top to Bottom) Me, Amy, Emilie, Jessica, Tatiana (The Birthday Girl!), Sally, Jackie at The Cheesecake Factory
Yesterday was LDOC (the last day of classes). That means today is Reading Day and that self-scheduled final exams officially start tomorrow. Everyone seems weary and worried. With every “How are you doing?” comes a sigh, a panicked laugh, or a hesitant “I’m alright, what about you?” At this point, I’ve already finished two finals and have three more two go: two self-scheduled exams and one paper. With every minute that passes I feel more stressed and worried about not having enough time to study for my exams and not having time at all right now to think about my paper. I bet many share the same worries. But, putting it all into perspective, knowing that this will all be over in less than a week is comforting.
Despite being busy, we took this previous Sunday off to celebrate our friend, my Big, and the best RA ever Tatiana Ortiz’s 21st birthday. At midnight, we snuck by her room and covered her entire door with wrapping paper. At around 9 AM in the morning, Amy and I woke up to Jackie and Sally sprinting down the hall. We followed them and found them filming Tati trying to bust out of her wrapped door with a tiny pair of scissors. It was absolutely hilarious.
We had a lot planned for the afternoon, so after witnessing Tati emerge from her doorway, we went back to our room and got to work. I spent the morning finishing up a philosophy video project (IMovie exporting always stresses me out so much). At around 2 PM, I went to a Zeta Alpha photoshoot at the ZA House down Tupelo Lane. We took family photos – I’m in the Angelou family, and we dressed in black like a chic group of poets. At around 3 PM, I popped into the third Chamber Music Society (CMS) concert to see Amy’s friend Pranathi perform in her trio with Catherine and Wenyu. Then, I rushed back to the ZA House for Secret Santa gifts – Ana Luisa gave me Kazuo Ishiguro’s When We Were Orphans and really cute hair clips while I gave Felix a glasses chain of turtles. 🙂 It was heartwarming watching so many people in one house dressed in festive colors opening gifts all at the same time.
NEUR100 Surprise Brain Cupcakes
At about 4 PM, our fourth floor friend group surprised Tati by taking her to the Cheesecake Factory. The lighting was immaculate as always – too dark to take any good photos but dark enough for a pseudo-fancy-restaurant feeling. Tati recommended these sweet corn tamale cakes and they were so good – if you go to Cheesecake Factory, you should definitely get some as an appetizer to share! Later in the evening at 8:30 PM, we held a small party in Sally and Jackie’s room where we gave Tati her presents and donned her in hot pink from head to toe, it’s her favorite color, and she looks stunning in it. 🙂 We ate so much cheesecake that I felt nauseous, and though Amy and I didn’t stay for board games, we took twenty minutes or so to chat with Sally about classes, SNL, and life in general.
Monday and Tuesday were incredibly busy. We rushed through class after class as we approached LDOC. Professors gave conclusion speech after conclusion speech, thanking us for the semester. It felt odd to end classes by semester after taking 2 year long IB classes and 7 week long Term classes last year. It hasn’t really hit me that college is temporary, that the number of classes and professors we can meet are limited. It’s a bit sad, but I’m really glad that we can finally wrap up this long, exhausting semester and say that I’ve taken these classes. It feels rewarding. 🙂 (Though maybe I’ll be saying something different after my last three finals.)
Peppermint Frosted Vanilla Cupcakes at Lulu
In between all the stress of rushing to cram a semester’s worth of information from two classes into my head all at once, there have been many sweet moments in between. In NEUR100, our practicum professor brought us brain cupcakes that her sister-in-law baked for us. Yesterday, Lulu had these peppermint-flavored frosting vanilla cupcakes that were so pretty and lovely. I decorated Christmas cookies with the Admissions Office student workers and got to meet some bloggers and student assistants too. Yesterday evening, I had my Chamber Music concert and I think we did pretty well! Though we rushed in so many parts, my fingers went numb halfway through, and my mask kept poking my eyes, I think we had fun playing our piece and that’s all that matters. 🙂
These few weeks after Thanksgiving and before Christmas are always tough. We will get through it! I believe in us (you more so than me), and soon we’ll be home. 🙂