Monday, December 7- Thursday, December 17
The Week Before and Of Exams

    Well, you want to talk about a stressful two weeks!  The week before exams I had three papers due (Greek History, Rhetoric, and Philosophy) and my French oral quiz. The papers were stressful, but, I got through those without too much trouble.  The oral quiz I was nervous about, but, managed to get through without too much difficulty.  In fact, as I later found out, I got a C on it, which wasn't too terribly bad, given how nervous and seemingly unprepared I was (I had been given a review sheet of questions she might ask and I had written out answers to the questions, but, well, memorization and I don't get along too well).   But, as a result of having the French oral quizzes for the rest of my class scheduled during my class time on Friday, I didn't have that class.  And, because my Rhetoric teacher felt that she should give us time to research and work on our final papers- to be turned in during exams' week- and partly because I think she was getting annoyed at trekking over to the Armory- I didn't have Rhetoric on Thursday of that week, either.
    Sometime during that week- the particular date escapes me- I was sent a relief package by my parents.  It was another one of those things that Xavier offers and my mother took advantage of.  So, all during that week and exams' week, I was munching down on various sorts of snacks such as Lemon Heads (yummy!), Slice candies (eh, okay), and bubble gum.  During the frantic paper writing that occurred the day before my Greek History final exam paper was due (Monday, December 14), that bucket of snacks came in mightily handy, as it did before the paper writing of my final Rhetoric paper (due Thursday, December 17).
    Exams week was started by me writing my Greek History paper all Sunday and barely studying for my French exam and Greek History written exams the next day.  However, since the French exam wasn't totally cumulative, and the Greek History exam certainly wasn't, I wasn't too overly concerned with studying up on them.  I did squeeze in a few hours of studying for them late Sunday and very early Monday morning.  Tuesday was my math and Philosophy exams, which I didn't really study for, as the Math was very easy and the philosophy exam we were allowed to have an outline for the in class essay we were to write. It's a good thing we had the outline because I would never have been able to write as much as I did without it.  Plus, it took the pressure off of worrying about memorizing a lot of material and gave us the chance to develop a better, well thought out essay than we could have if we were busy just remembering facts.
    Wednesday brought about finishing my Rhetoric paper and cleaning the room.  I had to do A LOT of cleaning in the room, such as running the sweeper (or vacuum, Heather) and dusting everything.  Luckily I didn't have any exams that day or else I would have been up the proverbial shit creek in respect to getting all of the cleaning done.  Sometime during that week, I believe it might have been Wednesday, I sold back the majority of my books and received a whopping $63.50 for them.  The next day, I sold back a few more of my books and received another $6.  Out of about $250 worth of books, I only got back $69.50 of them back. <sigh> However, that was excluding the largest package of books I had- my French books- because I need them for next semester of French.  (Lucky for me the French department got smart and are just using the same books for each level until they physically can't use the same books. I'm perfectly okay with this because the next semester of French is the last I'm taking!)
    Thursday I handed in my Rhetoric paper and said good-bye to my class in the Armory.  No more trekking across Victory Parkway....until I take psychology, which is in Elet. <sigh>  Before and after the Rhetoric exam, I did a lot of work around the dorm room, which included moving all the furniture away from the walls in order for the maintenance people to bug bomb and fumigate my room properly.  My dad joined me around noon and we ate lunch, bought books for next semester, and packed up the car with lots of stuff to bring home. (Which, I hope I remember all of it when I go back...I did pack an awful lot of stuff!)  I went home to go on Christmas Break!  Whee!