Quals

I am on the eve of my qualifying exam. I've spent the last two weeks studying like a crazy person. I chained myself to a desk in the library and poured over the seventeen papers I am to know back and forward. Since I am to have "broad expertise" in these subjects, seventeen papers turned in to something over thirty once I printed out selected reviews from the reference section. If I'm being honest, it's probably the most I've prepared for in exam in the history of me taking exams.

Yesterday I had to give a seminar to my fellow students. I hadn't slept the night before because a) I hate giving seminars, and b) I was thinking about the exam. I sat in the library, bleary-eyed and nodding off, my hand clawed around various coffee delivery systems. I had so much caffeine that I nearly spazzed out during seminar, and I talked so fast that I don't think anyone understood what the hell I was talking about. No one cared, though; we all wanted to go home.

Despite all of this, and the fact that my boss is on my ass about submitting my paper, I felt a sudden calm wash over me. I went to the library again today, only this time I was only there for about thirty minutes before I started nodding off. I decided it was time to come home.

I can't possibly look at these papers anymore. I am sick of looking at them. I've decided to say no to more studying. Tomorrow I will have to sit from 9am-12pm, then 2pm-5pm, and then I get to do it all over again on Friday. No, I am not going to study any more. There is no way that I could keep all of this information straight in my head - there is just too much to know. Something is bound to fall off the bookshelf if I stack any more nugs of information in the ol' brain library.

I am done.

So this afternoon I came home and I watched Amadeus. I think I might take a nap. For I am starting to actually believe, for once, that everything is going to work out ok. This is, after all, the last exam I will ever have to take. I've spent the last five years preparing for it. If I pass, I will deserve it. If I fail, I will deserve it. But right now, I am starting to feel tired - and I will not feel the least bit guilty if all I do for the rest of today is sleep. And you know what? Even the idea of it feels pretty damn good to me.