One Down, One to Go...

Geology midterm: Complete.

After studying myself into a migraine last night, I decided to finally try to sleep and hit the studying again in the morning.

See, I had a fear. Last semester, for my Accounting II final, I studied for 13 hours. I wrote 25 pages of notes, read 300 pages, and did 50 problems. Sat down for the final and... half the stuff on it was stuff she said wouldn't be there. A third of it was stuff I'd overlooked. I barely passed that thing, even with all my work. It's left me scarred and terrified. This is why I study so hard for tests now.

Anyway. Public Speaking class was just the thing I needed to ease some of the stress I was piling on. The professor was back from her trip to Japan, and obviously in no mood to teach. She made us watch a 20-minute block from that stupid movie she made us watch last week... (When she asked how it was, the class had a very hard time saying "Good." It was fun.) Then we got into the lecture of language. Denotation means the literal meaning, while connotation means its figurative definition. Simple. So she brings up an example.

"When you hear George Bush, you get the literal meaning of his name as him being human and the president."

I squirmed in my seat.

She asks, "So what does his name mean in connotation?"

Unable to control myself, I said, "We can't answer that... his connotations are inappropriate for school settings."

...I allow myself one stupid outburst per class per day. XD

She then went on to teach us how to reword things so that they don't sound as harsh (in other words, she taught us how to sugarcoat). This led to a very interesting discussion on masturbation... She was talking all about it, then made us watch some commercials for Viagra to show us how they reword things to make them sound more enjoyable.

We were all so stunned that we couldn't even laugh at the hilarity of it. ...Well, my friend and I managed a snicker and head shake. Y'know, the head shake you do when you lower your head, close your eyes, and shake it slowly? The one that says, "I don't know you" or "I can't believe you said that," etc. Yeah.

Anyway...

Geology class finally came, and I found myself face-to-face with my nemesis. After 15 minutes of stupid questions being asked and answered, the test was finally in front of me. I looked at it and, to my pleasant surprise, found I actually knew the stuff on it... and that 40% of it was comprised of the questions I spent those 10 hours on. It wasn't a nightmareish deja vu of Accounting II... I knew the stuff! I even was able to produce a pretty good extra credit essay (plus I've got 12 extra credit points in the bank for this thing).

I handed it in, and walked to my car. Only then did it hit me... It was over, and I was exhausted.

I'm reeling. I'm sitting here, slumped back in my chair, half conscious. I didn't think a midterm could take so much out of a person... I'm exhaling the stress that was pent up... at least for now.

I'm now looking ahead to the math test I've got on Friday morning. Fortunately, I'm better at math than geology, so I'm not as stressed. That, and I'm taking the rest of the day off to try and relax a little from the tension I put on.

I may have won the battle, but the war rages on.

...I've always wanted to say that.