I finished my last final for the semester an hour ago, and am currently in that rather ephemeral phase of elation where half the brain insists you go and do something to celebrate and the other half insists on total, mass shutdown of all neural activity. The simultaneous urges to do jumping jacks and take a nap are hard to reconcile. It's rather like being high. Or having just been hit over the head with a heavy blunt object.
It must be a combination of standard senioritis and simple end-of-semester burnout that has contributed to my total not-caring about most of my exams. My total study time for all five of them added up to about as many hours, and most of that was simply catching up on material for one class in particular whose last six meetings I missed due to job trips. P.S. Instant recipe for missing vast amounts of class, first-hand study of odd effects of rapid time zone vaulting, and strange random urges to visit that other state that's right over the river where you've never been before is to go on multiple job trips in the middle of the three busiest weeks of the semester. New York I've seen before, but going to Oregon was a new experience. I flew in on a Wednesday, arriving about 9:30pm in Portland, where an earnest rental car agent cautioned me about the possible 1-2 inches of snow accumulation that could occur overnight and asked if I wanted something with four-wheel-drive. I said I thought I'd manage.
I was put up in a rather decadent hotel adjacent to the jobsite, which I unfortunately couldn't take full advantage of since I had to immediately go to bed and then immediately check out in the morning. However, once the interview was over and I found myself with eight hours to kill before my redeye at 11:30, what else was there to do but investigate the area? A little shopping and a dark chocolate peppermint waffle cone (!) from Cold Stone Creamery later, I went back into Portland and began driving randomly around the city. It's my conclusion that Portlanders are java addicts. Not only were there multiple Starbucks on every street, but the gaps were filled in with small local companies and "shoppes," some rather arty-looking, all glass and gleaming stainless steel, others more down-to-earth with dim light and poofy-looking chairs. The city itself is quite appealing, especially all done up in its winter finery with tasteful white lights and tree-lined streets. I use the term winter loosely. There's a massive hill that rears up somewhat to the north and west of the city proper, which I decided to investigate simply because it was there and it was steep and dark and looming. Signs on the way up warned me to carry tire chains. I then proceeded to wind along the Skyline Drive and ended up somewhere about thirty miles from the city, which was fine since I still had three more hours to kill. So then I decided to go to Washington, since I'd never been there before. Drove across the river, through downtown Vancouver, then crossed back over and re-entered downtown Portland, where I finally went to ground in a Starbucks full of escapist collegers. Home Alone was playing on a large-screen television in the corner, and they were giving away free drinks from their holiday menu. Who was I to refuse a free peppermint mocha?
I stayed there until the college students had left and Macauley Culkin triumphed over evil, at which point it was finally time to head leisurely to the airport, after having my gas tank filled by a companiable Mexican attendant, who made some sort of comment along the lines of my being awfully young to be driving a Kia Sedona around. Hey, I didn't pick it.
At this point I think my cross-country adventuring is over though. Actual offers rather than second-interview invitations are coming in, and it's about time to buckle down and pick one. Now that I don't have to impress anyone any more, it's tempting to do something drastic like dye my hair blue and take up batiking. But for now I'm stuck here until the enormous snow/sleet/ice storm that is currently threatening the Northeast blows over, while all those fortunate enough to live less than a day's drive away abandon ship like rats. Correction: I actually have three options. One: stay here until Saturday, while the campus empties itself and I end up cleaning everything in site out of sheer boredom, two: to creep home tomorrow at twenty miles an hour and hope I don't end up in a ditch, and three: to creep homewards tomorrow at twenty miles an hour and hope I don't end up in a ditch until I can stop and spend the night at a buddy's place in New Hampshire. All of these options SUCK.
It must be a combination of standard senioritis and simple end-of-semester burnout that has contributed to my total not-caring about most of my exams. My total study time for all five of them added up to about as many hours, and most of that was simply catching up on material for one class in particular whose last six meetings I missed due to job trips. P.S. Instant recipe for missing vast amounts of class, first-hand study of odd effects of rapid time zone vaulting, and strange random urges to visit that other state that's right over the river where you've never been before is to go on multiple job trips in the middle of the three busiest weeks of the semester. New York I've seen before, but going to Oregon was a new experience. I flew in on a Wednesday, arriving about 9:30pm in Portland, where an earnest rental car agent cautioned me about the possible 1-2 inches of snow accumulation that could occur overnight and asked if I wanted something with four-wheel-drive. I said I thought I'd manage.
I was put up in a rather decadent hotel adjacent to the jobsite, which I unfortunately couldn't take full advantage of since I had to immediately go to bed and then immediately check out in the morning. However, once the interview was over and I found myself with eight hours to kill before my redeye at 11:30, what else was there to do but investigate the area? A little shopping and a dark chocolate peppermint waffle cone (!) from Cold Stone Creamery later, I went back into Portland and began driving randomly around the city. It's my conclusion that Portlanders are java addicts. Not only were there multiple Starbucks on every street, but the gaps were filled in with small local companies and "shoppes," some rather arty-looking, all glass and gleaming stainless steel, others more down-to-earth with dim light and poofy-looking chairs. The city itself is quite appealing, especially all done up in its winter finery with tasteful white lights and tree-lined streets. I use the term winter loosely. There's a massive hill that rears up somewhat to the north and west of the city proper, which I decided to investigate simply because it was there and it was steep and dark and looming. Signs on the way up warned me to carry tire chains. I then proceeded to wind along the Skyline Drive and ended up somewhere about thirty miles from the city, which was fine since I still had three more hours to kill. So then I decided to go to Washington, since I'd never been there before. Drove across the river, through downtown Vancouver, then crossed back over and re-entered downtown Portland, where I finally went to ground in a Starbucks full of escapist collegers. Home Alone was playing on a large-screen television in the corner, and they were giving away free drinks from their holiday menu. Who was I to refuse a free peppermint mocha?
I stayed there until the college students had left and Macauley Culkin triumphed over evil, at which point it was finally time to head leisurely to the airport, after having my gas tank filled by a companiable Mexican attendant, who made some sort of comment along the lines of my being awfully young to be driving a Kia Sedona around. Hey, I didn't pick it.
At this point I think my cross-country adventuring is over though. Actual offers rather than second-interview invitations are coming in, and it's about time to buckle down and pick one. Now that I don't have to impress anyone any more, it's tempting to do something drastic like dye my hair blue and take up batiking. But for now I'm stuck here until the enormous snow/sleet/ice storm that is currently threatening the Northeast blows over, while all those fortunate enough to live less than a day's drive away abandon ship like rats. Correction: I actually have three options. One: stay here until Saturday, while the campus empties itself and I end up cleaning everything in site out of sheer boredom, two: to creep home tomorrow at twenty miles an hour and hope I don't end up in a ditch, and three: to creep homewards tomorrow at twenty miles an hour and hope I don't end up in a ditch until I can stop and spend the night at a buddy's place in New Hampshire. All of these options SUCK.
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