Yeeeee-ha!!!!!!

Okay, so I'm back. If you've been wondering where I've been, I've been surfing the emotional rollercoaster that is midterms and wondering if that loop-de-loop in the middle would end in a fiery crash.

But as briefly noted before, I PASSED!!!!!!

A quick happy birthday to my dear dad before I continue, there we go, and on we go...

Sorry, I'm a little spacey; I'm extremely short slept, so this entry may be stranger than usual and end with my hitting my head on the keyboard in unconsciousness.

I believe, when we last left off, I was promising myself I wasn't going to stroke out for biochem and boy oh boy did I break that promise!!!!!!

I apparently have some sort of weird anxiety related insomnia that goes on, and needless to say, it nearly crashed and burned me in biochem, because I KNOW that stuff. I've probably dedicated 80 percent of my total study time to biochem because chemistry scares me. I felt confident, but needed review. So I was tired from my histo freak out (again, my poor poor roommate), so around 10 pm, thought, "I got this, this time. I'm going to take a unisom, go to bed, wake up nice and early with a good night's sleep, review the material, and go into that exam frigging PREPARED."

Took the second unisom at around 2:30. Took the third around 5. What did this mean? Couldn't sleep; too anxiety ridden to sleep despite being well prepared, and growing increasingly anxious about the inability to sleep, which is setting up a cycle that scares me for finals, so now everyone wants me to go to counseling to see what to do about it. Sigh.

But what else did it mean? Since I took sleeping pills, too stoned to study. Too anxious to sleep; too drugged to study. So I just stayed up and stayed up, and threw up, and took a shower, and walked around campus, and tried to focus in the library, and called my mom convinced I was going to fail. Same as histo, but worse. Harder subject, end of the week, less sleep, more conceptual information.

I go into the biochem exam... hoping, though not expecting, for it to be like histo where suddenly it floods back.

Noooooo sirreee. Or as David said while watching Rimmer fail a test on Red Dwarf "Oh my god!! It all looks like kinase!!!" Glucose 6 Phosphate; glucose 6 dehydrogenase, and because I was so TIRED, I couldn't logic things out.

I *felt*, with a few exceptions, like I essentially chimpanzeed the thing. I was concerned that I had just enough knowledge to beat probability. I nearly started sobbing in the exam, left after 45 minutes and then had to stand there while the prof fished out the notes for Monday and I'm SHAKING as I take them from him going "Don't let him see you cry; don't let him see you cry". At this stage, I figured I wasn't even going to BE there Monday. I figured I had the kind of score where they just kick you out. I was thinking it would be around a 20.

I went back to the dorm and burst into tears, Skyped my mom, who'd I'd left hanging, and cried all over her, that I wanted back to the States, didn't want to be here anymore, missed my damn dog, wished I'd never gotten myself into this, how was I going to pay my loans back when they kick me out of school and so forth...

About an HOUR later, my poor roommate came in from her test made a big fuss over me, hugged me, and all that, because she rocks, and with Dr. Paparo, is pending sainthood. Then some of my friends from the main exam room came in since I was still crying and made me feel better until they posted the results...

By. The. Freaking. Gods.

How the hell did I pass? I didn't know anything and left less than an hour in. Now, when I say "passed", I mean by the skin of my frigging teeth, but I freaking passed. I have NEVER in my LIFE been so happy for a "C", or in this case, a 69%. I was just hoping for an "F" high enough that I could drag it up with finals. Wahoo!!!!

I still hadn't slept, but I'd also barely eaten in two days, so it was like PIZZAAAA!!!!! We headed down to an Italian place near Spiceland Mall and had fun, while in the meantime, J'Leise was *ostensibly* going to Tobago to see her family. Liat airlines apparently had other plans for her, but was nice enough to fly her and all the other Trinis on campus within spitting distance of Trinidad, only to turn around and fly all the way back, pausing briefly to attempt a spiraling nosedive to impose mortal fear in everyone in the plane (seriously, tears and screaming) before returning to the airport to reward them for their bravery with mucho attitude. WTG Liat. The Caribbean's Least On Time Airline!

Back in the part of Grenada that wasn't screwing people over, we wandered over to Spiceland Mall, grabbed some groceries, and discovered that David was in possession of a nice sized bottle of rum, so we took the party to my place (where we later discovered the much annoyed J'Leise who seemed glad to have an audience to her Liat trauma).

Red Dwarf, rum, lemon sorbet, and Ting is a good combo. BTW, Rum and Ting now beats rum and Coke. Mmm mmm!

Unfortunately, party took us a bit late so I missed my first two dives Saturday, and they were doing the Bianca C! D'oh!!! They were cool about it though, and I managed to get onto the 1 PM dive for a very nice after body surfing for a couple hours while waiting for the early boat to come back.

After the dives, BEACH TIME!!!!!!! Snorkeling, sunning, eating mutton curry, getting told that I was "out of my top" at the curry place because I forgot about the no bathing suits at the table rule, thus the security guard made me feel like a tramp, then more sun and surf.

Dinner with Ashley, Nina, and David at Big Fish, which, for the record, has fajitas that actually taste like someone making them has a knowledge of Mexican food. Be advised. From what J'Leise has said, the fajitas at Glover's involve carrots... which is just wrong.

Dr. Chadwell was there and on his way out, said nice things, so good on him. Also saw the counselor there, whom I'm desperately hoping I will not have to talk to about my "anxiety problems" because I feel like such a high maintenance psuedobabble blonde twit.

So we were getting our party on, but it opened for the MPH party, which we would have stayed at but... well, let's just say the tone of approach lacked something, so much as I love my MPH brethren a lot and do NOT mind paying cover, since it was billed as a *private* party, we vamoosed. Besides, we were already halfway to hammered. Looked like fun though and some awesome, sports-equipment clad MPHers tried to convince us otherwise on the walk home. They're cool. I knew I was diving this morning though.

So MORE rum and Red Dwarf, which is just a great combo!!!! Went to bed and missed the 8 am bus. Dammit! Caught the 8:30 remembering that I was supposed to be AT Dive Grenada at 8:30, and swore, until recognizing my UK cold water compatriot on the bus, who was also cursing at being late... again.

Yes! A partner in crime! So we scuttled up as fast as possible, cutting across the construction site you're not supposed to cut across after begging permission from the workers and almost running into a goat (it happens).

We arrive, and Phil, with a gleam in his eye, says "We're going to have to buy you two a car!!!" "OKAY!" Susan and I agreed with gusto! Never make offers like that to starving students. The only question is going to be which side the steering wheel goes on.

Then Phil mentions seeing me at the bar at Big Fish.

"Which doesn't have anything to do with my being late!" I explained hastily.

With a gleam, he says "I never said that it did!"

With an answering gleam, I say "And I'm not saying that in any way connected to a guilty conscience!"

Phil is cool... which makes me feel bad that he got his octopus (spare reg) used more often this weekend than his primary. Everyone was having problems! Not with the operation, just in general. Dive 1 was Wibbles, and he said it wasn't as good as usual, but we did have a nice barracuda swim by us.

The second dive... ahhh the second dive... there are some dives where you can't just say "I saw this or that" that made it an awesome dive (though I did see a Flamingo Tongue)... it's just an awesome dive. My buoyancy and weighting were perfect, the area was pretty, the water temperature was wonderful, and I was just hovering around taking it in feeling "Ahhhhhhhh". During that dive, it was like the amalgated mass of stress sitting on me this whole weekend just leaked out my fins. Diving rules.

And then home!!! For a nap, but wanted to wish dad a happy birthday, and some people came by (Hi Nina!) so I'm headed bed bound. What morning histo lab???