Day 99 – Finals

Dec 4th

I struggled out of bed at around 9AM, to make some of the instant tiramisu coffee that I had picked up in a Malaysia coffee house. I relaxed on the sixth deck, sipping my coffee and reading over my study guide until lunch. The only edible thing turned out to be a turkey sandwich. Afterward, I had my sociology exam, which turned out to be easy as expected. The extra credit question was explaining how Kesho’s appearance on Oprah related to class material. Clearly, this opened the doors to a little brown nosing, but I kept my piece strictly political. When I came back to the room to get my laptop, Julie had just finished her last exam and (to me dismay) was slipping into her bathing suit to go lay out by the pool! I, unfortunately, still had to make a study guide about eating disorders for my psych of food exam. But, when Goldie called to watch a few episodes of Sex and the City, I couldn’t resist the study break. After finding out what happens to Carrie when she visits Aden in the country, I decided to head back to studying. Sara, Goldie, Britney and I met for dinner, which was once again horribly unoriginal. Sara and I found a quiet classroom by the Union to work on reading massive amounts of articles about food. She is in nutrition and I’m in psych of food and culture, so people could think we had serious eating disorders, or were just really studious. We took a few study breaks to watch Sea TV in Becca and Britney’s room and later to get fro yo at the pool bar. When we returned to our ice box classroom, where we seriously contemplated wearing snow suits and gloves if we had them, and listened to the Gamelon class performance in the Union while we worked.

Nighttime
By midnight, I dropped off my computer with Becca, so she could finish her movie project. Since Julie and I haven’t been able to fall asleep before 3 o’clock within the last week, we decided to be productive and stay awake. She artfully put together a slideshow for her parents, while I doodled pictures and quotes all over my world map that I picked up at a school supply store before I came. After I lost some interest and I realized I had nothing to do without my computer, I meticulously removed every errant hair from my body and re-polished my nails. Since I planned on “being fabulous” for my birthday, I decided I had to look the part. A few hours later, I finally drifted to sleep, dreaming of sugar plum fairies and candy canes.

Highs and Lows
My “high” was having only one final left! My “low” was experiencing the NY fall in a classroom on a ship off the coast of Mexico.