Whew!! The end of the semester is here. I am still alive. I still have my sanity...well, what sanity I had starting this little adventure is still somewhat intact, I have never bragged to anyone that I was ever completely stable. I have not been this stressed in years. At the beginning of the year it seemed like such a huge adventure. Anything I start new like this is just beyond fun, in my mind. I know, I am a book nerd, so be it. Some people enjoy running for 18 straight hours until their legs curl up like pretzels and they need to be transported in a wheelbarrow to their place of residence, some people like to travel great distances in all kinds of weather to sit in the cold rain to watch an odd bird of some sort do the hoky-pokey infront of a potential mate, I happen to love to learn things so this has been an absolute joy to me...until this month. This month has been different. This month has found us all scrambling to finish reports, put together things like seminars and powerpoint presentations, there has been the added pressures of trying to study for numerous tests and the list goes on and on, and yes, I understood this from the beginning, I knew this was what was going to happen, but it still does not make it any easier when crunch time comes and we are all down to the wire. I have to mention my powerpoint presentations. The very first one I put together was so bad. I mean, think of it like this~~ I am sure you have all seen a picture of the 'Mona Lisa', well think of what a stick figure would look like beside it and that would be my very first powerpoint presentation; the stick figure, not the 'Mona Lisa'. It served its purpose, but since we had not formally learned how to put a powerpoint together it had a lot to be desired. Once we learned powerpoint, well boys and girls!! I put my next one together with every bell and whistle Microsoft had included with the application. My pictures flew, they swirled, they increased in size, faded, changed color and bounced. They vortexed, cubed and even disappeared and reappeared. I was a powerpoint GENIUS!! I was so sure that my powerpoint would be the total envy of everyone; that is, until I took a look at the finished product. The instructors here have all told us to beware of a thing called 'death by powerpoint', where your presentation just goes on and on forever and people eventually expire from the sheer overwhelming boredom of the whole thing. Mine had a little variation on that theme. Mine was 'death by powerpoint~~ EXPLOSION' There were so many bells and whistles that I feared someone would have an epileptic seizure from watching it and need to be hospitalized. Needless to say I toned it down some and eventually produced a fairly decent presentation. At least I think so anyway... virdict is still out on the instructor and eight other students that watched it and went running from the room screaming. Anyhoo, as I sit here making this blog, on the second to last day of school before the Christmas vacation, and YES people, I say CHRISTMAS, not 'holiday', not 'winter event' and not any other stupid politically correct term for what I love to celebrate, I am very pleased to say that the huge list of things I had to accomplish when this month started is now all yellow-ed. That means that in my agenda, where all these things have been written down, I have crossed them all off with a beloved yellow hi-liter, which means they are finished. Those jobs are done. They have all been accomplished and now I can safely breathe a huge sigh of relief and sit back and be proud of myself. It has been a lot of stress for us, and I, for one, do not deal well with an over abundence of stress, it does funny things to me, like making me forget simple tasks like how to breathe, looking at people I know and wondering who they are, standing out on the deck at 2:30 in the morning in my jammies and thinking I should probably go to school and get a head start on the day, you know, silly little things like that. Crazy I know but that is the way it is. I have learned some things tho, I have learned that, even though I have done well this semester there are ways to do even better, like how to budget my time, how to do reports better and how not to stress so badly that I turn funny colors and eat cat food. I have also learned one more thing. I have learned that I am truly blessed to be able to endure this stress, to be able to put myself to the test and see that I can actually accomplish these tasks that have been set out before me, because as I write this, I have to think of the thousands and thousands of people this time of year, and all throughout the year as far as that goes, who, due to no fault of their own, are not able to enjoy any of the things I take for granted. So all in all, I have to say I am very happy with my life and the way things are going, and now that our semester is just about over we will all be able to have a bit of a rest before we have to gear up for Christmas, or Hannukah, or Kwanzaa, or whatever we all celebrate. So, in closing, I hope you have a merry 'whatever-you-celebrate', I know I will, please remember that there are those who could benefit from any kindnesses you could bestow upon them, no matter how small, and, just incase you were worried, I am no longer stressed enough that my kitty needs to share her kibbles with me. Peace out ma peeps.