honey, i'm coming home.

Finals are over. Mortuary School is officially half over. I don't know whether to laugh, cry or hunker down in a fetal position and rock back & forth. I'm leaving this morning and going HOME for 3 WEEKS, my 1st break since March.

I lowered my GPA this term. Since it stood at 100.35% last term it was pretty much inevitable. I'm below 100% now. Barely. But it still stings a little. I've been giving this my all, know I've done my best and couldn't do more or try much harder than I have been. If my very best falls short of perfection so be it (but it still stings a little). Being a perfectionist isn't fun. People who don't suffer from this monstrosity of an affliction will never understand the stress & pressure it causes. At times it's all consuming yet always self-deprecating. Allowing myself pride comes at a high cost and is often just too expensive for me to enjoy.

School is hard. So is this experience. This is single-handedly the craziest thing I've ever set out to do. It's painful yet rewarding. It's stressful yet a blast. It's challenging yet empowering. I still pinch myself sometimes while sitting in the classroom that I am where I actually am, sitting in a classroom IN MORTUARY SCHOOL, finally fulfilling my dream. At other times I sit on my bed in my small, quiet compartment (its too little to be called an apartment) and wonder WTF am I doing here, away from my family, away from my life, away from my comfort zone, studying subjects that sometimes feel are being taught to me in another language.

If this is what life is all about, I'm living it fully. But wow, what a freakin' roller coaster ride it is.

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(Above 100 = some professors will assign extra credit & only a fool wouldn't do it all)

Anatomy: 110% (earned max possible points!)
Chemistry: 102%
Embalming: 85% (last term was a 97% ::sigh::)
Business Law: 87%
Microbiology: 106%
Psychology: 102%
Restorative Art: 93%
Pathology: 98%
Public Speaking: 101%
Funeral Arrangements: 90%
Ethics: 100%
Funeral Home Management: 92%

...and so it begins...

Finals, Round II.
Twelve classes, Eleven finals.

My Ethics class didn't have a final.
Got my grade for the class yesterday.
100.
I think that means I'm proficiently ethical.

Speech Communications (Public Speaking) -
the final was this past Wednesday.
I know I got one wrong but believe I rocked it out otherwise.

Ten more finals to go. Two per day, M-F.

Three weeks of break to follow.
I need a break.
Perhaps even more than three weeks worth.
I need a brain reset button.

Almost halfway to home plate.

the calm before the storm.

i'm home for one last weekend of semi-peace before the next 2 hell weeks begin. it's review week & then finals... 11 of them this term.

i have some homework to complete this weekend, more than i wish i had. other plans include:

nothing.

that's right. nothing. i want to just sit still and not think. to enjoy home and forget about school (impossible). i want to watch W throw goldfish across the room at J (what he's doing as i type this) and have life be that simple for the next 3 days.

my lives, both of them (i truly feel like i live 2 very distinctly different lives right now) are insane. i still can't believe all that i do each week. i also can't believe it's almost half way over. crazy.

wish me luck on finals, i feel like this term i really need it.