Saturday afternoon through Monday afternoon was a heck of a ride. Upon returning from football and brunch, I cleaned up the battleship program and got straight to work on my medieval women final paper, which took all of Saturday night and Sunday. By 1am on Monday, I'd painfully written an almost-draft, and then resolved to prepare for my IHUM exam at 8:30. For about six hours, I compiled summaries and indexed notes, then went to sleep at 7. Tory very kindly woke me up an hour later, since she was doing a literal all-nighter to finish her IHUM paper. Apparently, I paid her back by shouting at her in alien tongues until she said the signal phrase "exam in half an hour." Weirdness. Especially in light of the fact that I've done the same thing to my mom last year, and also to Molly a couple of weeks ago, which she said had the added bonus of bits about having to check the stock market. I won't question.

The IHUM final was 8 straight pages of writing in three hours, which sucked for my hand but wasn't an inordinate strain on my mind. It's probably spoiled me for any future exams by setting a low bar. I did run a bit short on time, but not enough so to make me stress. At the very least, it finished at noon, which allowed me to dash to Gates to hand in my program, eat lunch back at Branner, and return to my medieval women paper. I think I was more focused over those next three hours than I've been all quarter, which allowed me to hand in an essay with which I was passibly satisfied at 5. Whew! In celebration, Monday night was designated as "screw academics, I'm taking a break" night, and I spent it running all sorts of errands with my roommate Betsy. In addition to the usual post office and

In actuality, "screw academics, I'm taking a break" turned into "screw academics, I'm taking a break 36 hours... but it all worked out. I still had two days to study for CS, which only entailed doing as many practice programs or memory traces as I could find. When I got to the point where every invincibility star I picked up in Mario Kart got me thinking about pointers, I gave up, joined in the revelry that spontaneously ignited in the usually-silent dining hall-temporary study hall for a couple of hours, then went to bed.

This morning I woke up relatively early to tab the important handouts and chapters, and am now sitting here awaiting the start of lunch at 11:45 so I can grab a sandwich and head over to the final. Woohoo!