Finals Week (Oh, the Excitement)

I always feel like kind of a waste of space during finals week. I'm busy, as is everyone else, but I'm never as busy as professors, who have to grade everything. I feel like it's not really more work than I normally have, it just counts more, but I also don't have class, so I have more time to do it. When I was in undergrad, this time was spent by sitting around with my friends and watching TV and making massive trips to the dining hall to stock up on fries/apples/energy drinks. Now, though, there is no dining hall, I live by myself, and although I have certainly been "wasting" time with friends, it's been a lot more of sitting by myself with my computer. I also don't have sit-down finals this semester, so I don't have to study for slide tests, which is pretty nice.

Finals just seem less scary and/or less important now. I think this stems from working retail and interning last year, and seeing how busy this season really is for some people. Some of my coworkers would work 2 weeks straight for the extra holiday pay. As Christmas got closer, I was only getting 15 minute breaks at the register because it was so busy. Standing for 9 hours and being polite to EVERYONE? Slightly harder than writing papers, at least for me (although, you do get paid!). I've also finally realized that everything will work out fine, that I can turn in something not quite perfect, and it's not the end of the world. A healthy attitude, although I'm not sure how great a grad student it makes me! My internet gave out a few nights ago, and rather than tweaking out about not finishing an image set, I just took a bubble bath and started an Elizabeth Peters book and went to bed, knowing that I have good time management and would have plenty of time to finish what I had to do. And I did.

So, what I have left: an Italian presentation tonight, a whole bunch of bibliographies, a paper on my "research methodology" (would you want to read that?? I certainly would not), and a scary paper for my seminar that I am sort of in denial about as it is due next Wednesday. In preparation for this paper, here is what my living room floor looks like:
A chart of seventeenth century self-portrait types, color coded by country, grouped by motivation behind the portrait (facial studies, stressing intellect of artist, status, in the act of painting, etc.) Which is all well and good, except I still have no thesis (or at least, not a thesis that I am comfortable with) and this paper is worth 70% of my grade. GAH.

Other than that, though, I need to do all my holiday shopping (which I really enjoy) and I have a few fun things planned during the rest of finals time, so things could be much worse. So far, the best cures for stress--listening to La Vie en Rose, loudly and on repeat while you waltz about your apartment, snagging free cookies from the museum, giggling a lot with friends either in person or on the phone, reading Adrienne Rich's "Claiming an Education" to remind myself why I am here, and thinking of all the fun family and friend times that await me in about a week and a half. Bring it on, finals!