Merry Christmas!

I woke up to sunshine this Christmas eve, looked out my bedroom window at a diamond ocean glittering in the sun.  After more than a week at home, I've succeeded in studying a bit of Arabic, reading a few pages of a few books, running a few miles, and absorbing some sun.  Which is fine, really.  I'm on break.

I spent the weekend before Finals Week huddled like a recluse in a darkened room, drinking pots of coffee and tea and frantically scribbling notes, organizing papers, and flipping through books for hours upon hours.

I had a test a day Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, each represented by a colored balloon taped to the door frame.  The greatest satisfaction of Finals Week was coming back to the room after each test and violently popping each balloon with whatever sharp object happened to be lying around.  Calculus was the most difficult of them all.  Three solid hours of the most tedious math problems organized on eye-watering colored paper in a stuffy basement room with ancient lecture hall chairs whose fold out desks were almost smaller than the paper itself.  But it was all worth it when Thursday evening I got to come home to my stately room, my wall of bookshelves, my soft brown queen-sized bed, and my ecstatic cat.  And my family.  It was so good to be home, and the weather has been gorgeous.  Sunny and warm, with a few days of wind and clouds, Florida is putting on quite a show for my time back.  It's so nice to be celebrating a warm, sunny Christmas with family.