finals & ten.

"Eighty percent of success is showing up."
-Woody Allen

Tell that to my chem professor, Woody.

I'm not sure why I'm bothering with a post, because I really have no updates. My last five or six days have been spent mainly in the library, with the occasional late night runs with Maggie for Tops pizza or to restock my peanut M&M stash. The extent of my free time has been a dinner break each night to catch up on Britain's Got Talent from the night before, or watch highlights from the French Open. You'd think, with all that studying, that I'd be pretty prepared for my exam tomorrow, right? Wrong. I've gotten to the point where I'm finally starting to understand the material, but as my exam is in just over twelve hours, it's a bit late to memorize much. And now that I'm realizing the material isn't impossible to learn, I've actually found a section or two that I sort of enjoy (gasp!). If the entire exam were on naphthalene, carbohydrates or amino acids, I would destroy it. But alas, I'll be lucky if those sections even get me 10 points. I should take this as a learning experience to rid myself of the usual procrastination, hm?

Thankfully, statistics professors here know how to give an exam. We only had to answer three out of eight multi-part questions (I need less than two correct for an A), and if we answered more than three, the professors would take our three best answers. Even better, the questions were based directly off of the finals from the past two years. With classes like that, I understand why people say studying abroad is a piece of cake.

On Sunday morning I hopped on a bus to Heathrow for my Albany fix. (I suppose that makes me a liar, because I just said that my only study break was at dinner. Apologies.) Jill, Becca, Kim, and a few other girls made their way through customs and security just to spend a couple of hours with me, for which I am honored. It was fun to do a brief catch up, though I'm sure we'll have plenty more stories to exchange next year. It's a bit of a strange feeling to see close friends after such a long period of time. To me, I'm living an entirely different life than I was six months ago, yet while I was with them, it seemed as if nothing had changed. I almost thought I was about to get on the plane to Egypt with them. Instead, I hopped back on a bus to Kingston, but I'll be back at Heathrow in just two days to pick up Morgan! =)

Anyway, people have begun trickling home to the states. My dear blogging friend Larry made it back to Albany safely from Japan a few days ago. I guess it'll be my turn before too long. I suppose now that it's well past midnight, the count is down to ten days. I'll just have to make them ten of the most fantastic days of my life! (Well, nine. Nobody in their right mind would count an organic final as a fantastic day.)

It's a bittersweet symphony, this life.