Easy and Bookish on Friday

Freshman year Fridays were the day I dreaded most because class began at 9 a.m. and the hell-sent day with no breaks spat me out around 4:30 p.m. only after a finale of 4 torturous hours in chemistry lab. The weekend didn't start out all too well either because I often left lab reliving the horrors of experiments almost exploding in my face, bitchy impatient lab-assistants, or completely knocked out after inhaling some sort of noxious fume for far too long.

This year, Fridays are easy. I made sure my course-load would not tax me on this day, and I refused to let the physicists include this day in my work schedule. This semester, I roll out of bed around 10:30 a.m. as more of a formality than an obligation. I plop myself in a classroom from 11:15 a.m. to 12:05 p.m. and then I indulge in a little tradition I seem to be developing this semester. I go to our main library, and head to the room with the big windows where they display all the magazines and journals they get from all over the world. I take off my heavy winter coat that makes me look like a walking penguin, grab a small or medium cup of chai tea, and settle down with a Newsweek or Times or on occasion a random equivalent in French (in what seems a losing-battle attempt to retain the bits of that language I remember).

I was tired today, having stayed up late reading a story I just couldn't put down in Bad Dirt. When I woke up the first thing on my mind was how I was going to sprint back to my room after class and pass out in my bed to make up for a less-than-8-hour night of sleep. After class, though, the sun came out and I felt free enough to forgo my nap; it's not like there was an assignment I had to be rested up enough to do today. Instead, I went to the library to return a book I just finished a few nights ago and then to indulge in my Friday tradition.

This last day of the week parallels just what I wanted out of my last semester in college. I wanted to avoid heavy schedules and let myself unwind from a prior period of intensity. Speaking of which, this week was one of my few slightly crazy weeks this semester. I had two exams, neither of which I cared to freak out about. I also covered my two middle fingers with superglue in a little occupational accident. After a slight freak-out period over that, a day's worth of rubbing and chaffing has since returned my fingers to normal. I'm not expecting another "high-intensity" week until sometime in mid-April (the me of a year ago would laugh and growl at this me calling this a high-intensity week), although I ought to start working on that senior thesis project sometime soon...

In other news, I'm adding a little book section to the left sidebar. I'm not delusional enough to think I can make money off of posting what I'm reading, although if I ever become an internet superstar I may attempt to. In the meantime it's just a stringless way to keep track of another aspect of my life. Now that I have a little spare time in my life, I like losing myself every so often in a book or five that I don't have to read for school. I'm much better at checking books out of the library than actually finishing them, though, so I'll make that distinction.

Oh and for sanity's sake, India Arie is not her hair, and I'm not the books I read. Like she says, we're the souls that lie within. So unless you have a key or care to ask, don't judge. I'm just trying to keep an open mind/learn/entertain myself. *Smph* The qualifiers we burden ourselves with these days.