A rolling stone...

When looking back at last semester, it's very apparent that I saw school differently at each end of the semester. At the beginning, I was about an inch away from clawing my face off with the anticipation of how much work needed to be done. By the end, I managed the work much more efficiently and I was a LOT less stressed. It seemed that the more work I did, the easier the work became. One could make the metaphor that I was pushing a giant stone, and once I got to the end of the semester, the momentum seemed to carry me through. Now I have to start all over, since the stone came to a standstill and filled itself with beer and holiday cookies over the last few months.

It was nice getting back to class and seeing presentations again. Last semester, class was my oasis. I loved and still love going to class. Oftentimes, my classmates will remark that I seem to be in an exceptionally good mood ALL THE DAMN TIME. It's not that I'm in a good mood all the time, it's just that going to class PUTS me in a good mood. It's hard to miss the fact that sometimes I'm squirrely in class and it often appears that I'm completely unaware of the task at hand, but nothing could be further from the truth. Through the hardships of advanced academia come very tight-knit friendships which are very hard to break. I feel very lucky to have found such friends and I also feel very lucky to have the chance to work with them every week. To me, getting to go to class is worth every minute I have to spend reading or doing what appear to be menial assignments.

One thing I dreaded last semester that I'm not dreading this semester is the class presentation that everybody is assigned. Last week, Brian (Bryan?) bravely volunteered to do his first. I liked his use of an outline on the overhead, which gave me something to reinforce the topic and purpose of the discussion and task to be accomplished. I thought he did a splendid job of teaching us about what people other than our book authors were saying.