Monday: Crunch time. I spent the day doing last-minute things, including printing photos for cards--one of which I wanted to give to the techs, as Jake, Alex and, to a lesser extent, Chris, had played a major role in helping me to survive the hell that I went through this semester. The card was half-thank-you card and half-happy holidays card.
I finally started packing that night.
Tuesday: More getting stuff done, including getting a stack of movies from the NSCAD Visual Resources Collection for the break and getting food for Thursday (otherwise I would've been stuck eating crap at Irvings). I treated myself to supper at Boston Pizza to celebrate surviving the semester, and that night I stayed up a little too late packing.
Wednesday: The longest day of the semester. I'll let my Facebook status from that evening do the talking: "[I'm] done for the semester and [have] been kicked out of the Photo Dept., as they closed at 6:00. I said good-bye to some friends who are graduating (one of whom is going back to RI), had some of the dept.'s goodies (including hot apple cider and cranberry juice with lemon), hung out, enjoyed watching the last minute dash, caught up with a former classmate, got hugs from at least four people, shared the story of my busy day with one of the techs [Alex]: I didn't know where we were starting today: in the classroom or at the place where the crit was?, went to the wrong campus as a result, met up with a classmate who also didn't know what was going on, found out where to go [we asked Jake, who was in The Cage at the time], trekked down to the correct campus [Port], was half-an-hour late to class as a result, [ran] back to the campus where I started [Granville] at noon, ordered lunch there and dropped off a holiday card to another tech [Jake, again]--it's for all three guys--grabbed lunch on the way out, [ran] back to the other campus, continued with the rest of the crits, was done about an hour and a half early, went back to [Granville] with a few friends--chatting with them the whole way--wished the daytime weekday security guard happy holidays, went to the Photo Dept., hung out there until close and talked with the aforementioned friend, said good-bye to both her and the tech who was on tonight [Alex] and headed to another location [the library] to catch up on FB and email and eat supper... **whew** And it's not over yet: when I get home tonight, I have to shower, finish my packing up to the last-minute stuff that'll get packed tomorrow, crash until 6:00 AM, get up, pack the last-minute stuff, get dressed, lug my stuff down to the elevator (keeping an eye out for my roommie's cats, one of whom likes to escape), call a cab, lug my stuff to the cab, go to the bus station, lug my stuff inside, lug it back out when my bus is announced, stow said stuff, hand them my ticket and--FINALLY--relax.
If you made it all the way to the end of this MASSIVE status update, CONGRATULATIONS!!!! #ChristmasBreak #lastdayofclass #finals"
A little bit later I posted, "I forgot to mention that according to Alex (classmate), I'll be known as the woman who brought rum cake to the final #APC crit (we had a potluck)."
I ended up setting my alarm for 5:45 AM, as I felt that 6:00 wouldn't give me enough time. I crashed at about 1:00 AM.
Thursday: Up and at 'em--way too early and with one heck of a massive sleep debt (due to Tuesday and Wednesday nights, I was missing about ten hours of sleep). I packed the last-minute stuff (including food), triple-checked my packing list, checked the temperature, got dressed, lugged my bags out into the hall one at a time, left a note for my roommie, locked the door, lugged my bags to the elevator (which is just two doors down from my apartment, the stairs being the other door), took the elevator down to the ground floor, lugged everything into the lobby, called a cab, lugged my stuff into the entryway, lugged it to the cab (which was extremely prompt, even for the company that I deal with), went to the bus station, lugged my stuff inside, put tags on the two bags that would be going under the bus, lugged my stuff back out, got my two non-carryon bags stowed underneath, chose a seat and--finally, after two days of non-stop gogogo--relaxed. I snoozed for a couple hours, read and checked the internet wherever possible (while Maritime Bus advertises that they have wifi on their buses, that isn't true for the entire fleet). Finally, the bus from Moncton (there's a transfer there) pulled into the terminal at Fredericton and I unloaded my stuff and looked for Mom's Highlander. I didn't see it, so I lugged my stuff into the terminal as it was far too cold to stay outside very long (welcome to New Brunswick). After lugging my stuff to a chair, I turned around--and there was Mom!
As usual, we talked all the way home. I was in bed by 12:30 that night, as I was incredibly tired.
Friday: I planned to get a bunch of stuff done, but as I was still exhausted and had a headache due to said exhaustion (those are the worst), I didn't do much.
I found out that day that December thirteenth, in addition to being Santa Lucia Day, is International Violin Day. Yes, apparently the violin has its own holiday--as it should. I celebrated by listening to the BSO and then dancing that night to some of my favourite violin pieces. For a belated celebration, here's one of my favourite pieces from The Nutcracker: the Coda. Holy sixteenth notes! Violinists who play this, I salute you! Ditto and double when it comes to sight-reading the sixteenth notes at full speed (which I just tried with the first violin part that I have in PDF format on my computer--see here).
For anyone who's curious, here's what the first violin part looks like for the Coda:
Saturday: I was almost back to normal, and Mom and I brought the tree into the house ahead of a major storm that was expected to hit that night.
That day was the first Met Opera radio broadcast where the MOO was conducted by James Levine in about two years. WELCOME BACK, MAESTRO! (BTW, the opera that day was Verdi's Falstaff.)
Sunday: Much of the day was devoted to making Mom's birthday supper (vegetarian pizza and carrot cake, both of which were delicious).
I discovered this song while listening to a radio station that I discovered yesterday, and which you can check out here. Many of the songs are in Norwegian, and the station itself is based in Norway.
This particular song is mostly in English--but with some Norwegian words thrown in to keep you on your toes. Click here for the lyrics.
Happy Holidays!
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