What Day Is It Again?

I seem to have completely gotten off on my days. After Christmas, what day it is gets really unimportant to me. I tend to revert to child mode and spend the following days immersed in playing with my new toys.

I'd sum it all up, but this years Christmas deserves more than that. So I'm working on a post about Christmas and the events of that wonderful day. Pictures will most definitely be included. And, since my entire family is made up picture takers, I have (easily) a hundred pictures to dig through to find the best and brightest.

So consider my "Yay Christmas Day!" post Coming Soon.

In the mean time, I hope all of you had a fabulous Christmas! Was Santa good to you? Or were you on his naughty list?

When The Moon Goes Dark

Remember when the word "eclipse" made you think of space, not Twilight? Ah, those were the days...

I know this is a little belated, but I wanted to share some of the photos my Dad took on the 21st, when we stayed up to watch the lunar eclipse.

We almost missed it. Mom had told me it would be on the 21st, but I somehow got it in my head that the 21st plus nighttime equaled the night of the 21st. Which, looking back, doesn't make sense considering after midnight, it would no longer be the 21st.

I was laying in bed, cozy and ready for sleep. Addicted to technology and social networking, I was tweeting my "goodnight" and started to notice that a lot of the people I follow were talking about the eclipse and how they were up late waiting for it.

So I double-checked, realized I was all wrong about when it was happening, and hurried outside to make sure I hadn't missed it.

I hadn't.

When I went outside, the Earth's shadow was just starting to creep across the edge of the moon.

I went back inside to tell my Dad, and we both went out and craned our necks to watch.

About halfway through, we woke Mom up, since she was the one who'd told us about the eclipse in the first place. So then all three of us sat outside and watched. We even had binoculars, although a telescope would've been ideal. The binoculars were still good, though.

And all of us were thankful that it was abnormally not cold that night, since that would have made watching the eclipse much less pleasant.

In the end, it was a really awesome experience, and very worth staying up for.

Enjoy the pictures! All are property of my Dad, taken with his Nikon D80.

And Then There Was One

It has been a long day.

I got to bed late because, of course, I procrastinated in my studying. I tend to do that. Especially when I know I shouldn't. So waking up early again was killer. Even more so than the day before.

And this time I rolled out of bed at 6 instead of 6:30. I figured getting up earlier was worth having time to stop by Starbucks on the way to my first exam.

I was right.

And I was really excited because I finally got to use the tumbler I bought! So that was a perk. Hey, enjoy the little things, right?

I got to campus early, despite a lengthy wait at Starbucks, but then I made the mistake of sitting in my car, listening to The Swell Season, and singing like a crazy person. Which wasn't so much a mistake, I guess, so much as it put me right on time instead of early. But in the end, it didn't matter. Honestly, I glanced over my notes briefly before he handed out the exam, but nothing I didn't already know stuck anyway. Seems that's just the way of things.

Ok, Campaigns & Elections.
Let's do this.

I was not particularly enthused to take this final. I do really enjoy politics, which is why I thought I'd love this class. And I did find the class interesting—I just...don't know much about political science, and the tests were typically the roughest out of all of my classes. More from struggling with theories and such—Michigan School Theory and Median Voter Theory, I can't tell you apart very easily!

But the good news came when he gave us a quick overview of how the test would go. Back on our final class day, he'd told us that since we were going to have two hours to take the final instead of the usual fifty minutes, we'd have 3-4 essays to answer instead of just one. And more terms to define. But on exam day, it turned out we only had one more definition than normal, and we only had to write two essays.

Insert massive sigh of relief.

I had a break between that exam and my next—Shakespeare. So I came home, intended to study and...took a nap instead.

It was lovely.

Until I went to take my Shakespeare final.

Four essays. Part of what we had to answer was identifying who was speaking to whom in the passage—she gave us lines from the plays and we had to discuss their significance for the overall themes of the plays, plus compare it to one other play we read in class. I totally blanked on these. I didn't recognize the quotes at all. If she hadn't at least given us which play it was from, I would have had no idea where to even begin.

The only positive thing to come from my general "I just don't care," mentality was that instead of freaking out, which would be my normal reaction to looking at a test and feeling like a deer in headlights, I just sat back and reread the quotes several times until I either started to recognize them or could make an educated guess.

After the exam—which did indeed take me the majority of the two hours allotted—I discussed the questions with my friend, Megan. By some lovely miracle, I was pretty much right. At least on who said what.

As to the essays...it's kind of a toss up. I tend to do well on essays, especially in English—not to brag. I'm just an English major, is all. Something would be kind of wrong if I flubbed essays on a regular. But I hate to get my hopes up because I really feel like I was grasping at straws for most of my answers and analysis. We'll see. Grades will be up at the end of the week.

Until then I can stress. But I won't. I'll bask in the glory of being at home, not fussing with school.

But that comes after tomorrow. I'll get back to that.

Also, probably the highlight of my day was when Megan gave me my Christmas present after our Shakespeare exam! Not only do I love Christmas presents, but what she got me is absolutely awesome. I'm pretty sure I made my little 'hyperventilating' excited noise when I opened it.

If you know me, you will understand.

Homer mugs! WOO-HOO!

Immediately following our last Shakespeare test ever, Megan and I planned to hit up O'Bannon's, our favorite Irish pub in Northgate—College Station's cluster of bars, if you have no idea what I'm talking about. They do a beer tour—you get a card that they stamp for each unique beer on the tour. 75 total. At the end, you get some serious bragging rights and an awesome stein. I totally plan on finishing this before I graduate. Or possibly when I graduate. But I digress.

On the way, we were going to stop and sell back books. It's always disheartening if you think about how much you spent on them initially, but getting some pocket money is nice just the same.

So we headed for Loupot's, one of the better (in my opinion) places to sell back here in College Station.

Enter first new experience of the day.

I got rear ended.

Not exactly my idea of fun, I gotta tell ya. But the plus side is, the girl who hit me was really nice and super apologetic. And, best of all, there was basically no damage to my car. A tiny little scratch—but if you asked me to swear under oath that I was 100% positive she was the one who did it, I probably couldn't. It's so small that I wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't been looking.

So I left my first car accident—well, the first one in which I was driving—not much worse for the wear. Except for a little boost of adrenaline.

Wait...my neck is a little sore... I guess that could be from the, uh, incident. If it still hurts in a couple of days, I'll be more worried than I am now.

But at least selling back my books went well. I walked away with a little over sixty bucks. Which is, quite frankly, about thirty more than I thought I'd get. Whoop!

Then when we got to O'Bannon's, I liked each of the two beers we tried. (This is not always the case. I like beer, but there are some that are just...yikes.) And I also got a free cupcake!

Beer + Cupcake = Delicious ÷ Unhealthy

Okay, I got two free cupcakes.

But Megan didn't take one, so I'm pretending like she did and then I just took hers. It makes me feel better.

So all in all, today has actually been pretty good.

It just sort of feels more like two days in one.

Oh, and as I'm writing this post, I'm surveying my apartment and thinking 1) this place is a shameful mess, 2) I really should be packing, 3) Oh, right, I still have that one last final tomorrow morning... and 4) I guess I should study.

Oh, if I must...