One term down, something like 8 to go...

I finished my last final for my first term of "back to college" about an hour ago. I was the most nervous about this final--Death and Dying--but I got a 98% on the test. That means that, with Accounting and Biology, I have my first ever 4.0 gpa. This is a great beginning :-)

I'm celebrating, of course, but my best friend is in a meeting, my other best friend is putting her son to bed, and my parents are in Costa Rica. So, I'm celebrating alone, but that's okay. A lot of this I did on my own. All of my celebrations will come with various friends and family in their due time, but tonight I'm content to celebrate with myself. Gatsby greeted me at the door and we spent a fair amount of time jumping on our hind legs and dancing about. Gatsby did great work too...he spent a damn lot of time alone during this term and didn't so much as tear up one shoe or dig one item out of the trash.

I start up again in two and a half weeks with intermediate algebra and cellular biology. I need to find a way to bottle this feeling, 'cause it's not going to last long. Tonight, though, I will allow it to last forever.

The bubble

Took that stressful histology quiz today...got a 20/20. I missed two questions (confused "ground substance" for "matrix" and completely forgot what collagen fibers were) but answered the 2 point bonus question (transitional epithelium) so I evened out.

Let me tell you about the bubble. The A bubble. Lots of people know about this, probably, but I'm just finding out about it now, since I used to be a B/C student. The A bubble is a delicate balloon of perfection that starts out innocently enough but snowballs into a tightrope of pressure and stress.

In the A bubble, I have all As. The number of points I've lost in all three of my classes can be counted on one hand. I love that. I kind of wish I'd done it sometime before my thirties. But, here's the thing: the harder and longer I work to keep my A, the more stressful it becomes. If I keep an A until now and then blow it on one test, what then? The chances of my getting it back are slim to none, because the trick to the bubble is: once it pops, there's no repairing it. Whereas if I was a perfectly happy B student, all the pressure is off.

Is this making sense? I'm delirious I think.

Anyway, I love being smart. I've always been smart, but I've never been that big of a fan of utilizing my brains. It's kind of a cool thing and, whether or not I actually end up in funeral directing (more on that later), it's been totally worth going back to school just to do it right the second time around.

Back in the habit

Between the big test on Thursday night and company in town over the weekend, I haven't studied since, well, Wednesday. I should be back into it by now, seeing as how my company left about five hours ago. And I have another bio test on Wednesday that's worth 20 points so it's almost as big of a deal as the lab test. I should be studying my ass off. And yet...

It seems that getting out of the habit of studying around the clock has served as an off-switch for studying entirely. I'm going to give myself another two hours, and then I'm getting back to the books. I have to. If I get an F on Wednesday's test (on material I'm familiar with and have had the opportunity to study for the last two weeks), I will freak right the fuck out.