Good Friday, Good Times

There is a world of difference between 11 k at ten degrees Celsius and 7 k at 26 degrees Celsius. Man, I forgot how summer jogging works. Hint: with lots of little breaks in between. And a bottle of water. It was really nice though; it being Easter Weekend, and the beginning at that, there were a lot of families out and about, enjoying the day. And a lot of college-oriented students too, on their break before the studying for finals.

And speaking of studying for finals... after three and a half long years, I've finally uncovered the best part of being a grad student: a stress free end of classes. Throughout the entire undergraduate career, the end of classes is a time of huge stress--you're desperately trying to cram in the last few assignments you didn't quite finish, and then cramming some more for the final exams. Sure, there's usually some "end of class" sort of party, but it's always got this weird sense of desperation to it; you want to get all the partying in before the crunch time comes.

The option to avoid the stress, I suppose, is to get a job and enter the work force--but that doesn't so much avoid stress as make it low level, yet never-ending. Even the MA and the beginning of the PhD courses aren't entirely free, because you've got those giant end term papers to wade through. To date, the closest thing I had to a "responsibility-less" end of term would be the April of 2008, and I was too stressed out about finishing the thesis and leaving my province of birth to really enjoy it.

This time, however, there's nothing to hold back. End of classes means a break from teaching for a semester. And because there's no papers to write, the "end of term" partying felt more tranquil than anything else. Yep, nothing smooth sailing from...

Oh right. That comp thing. Less than two months to finish up over 19 000 pages of over 50 texts that I'm desperately cramming. (There's the cram!) Forget the tranquility then. I'm going to go back to existential dread and panic.
Later Days.