Ice and Exams

Welcome to my home away from home.  I've been spending so much time in this ominous beacon of steel and cement, that I saw it fit to give it a blog entry (lucky building...).  This past week has been one of non-stop work and studying.  It seems that all my classes conspired to stress me out.  My friend from Italy was telling me about how their final exams are stretched out over four weeks.  Even with that, he said, he still has lots of things due all at once.  Still, it has to be better than having everything due within one week.  The culmination of every class, every project coming together in a single week is simply too much.  It seems that all my time is spent in this nifty building, whether it's early in the morning, late at night, raining, snowing, hailing, or raining fire like the apocalypse.

But, this is just the change the winter brings.  Out goes the warm weather, in comes the cold.  No more rain (well, some rain... Ms. Nature can't make up her mind at the moment), just lots of snow and ice.  It's not all bad, however.  Occasionally the snow falls just right, the night sky turns an inky black, and icicles reflect the light from the street lamps in a thousand different directions.  It's a welcome break from the various stress associated with this time of the year.  It may sound cliche, but there's something to be said for stopping and smelling the roses... or in this case, the ice covered branches of the trees on the Engineering Quad.  There's a funny kind of tranquility that the ice has.  It reminds me that sometimes I just have to sit still for a while and reassess my priorities, just like that frozen water is doing (should I be ice?  Should I melt and drip?  I think I will chill here for a little bit...).

In any case, all the badness that is final exams will pass in a matter of days.  The ice will melt, vacations will begin, and building lolcats will consume all of my free time.