The semester was wrapping up like a two-year-old wraps up your own junk with toilet paper to give you for your birthday: messy and catastrophic to the cleanliness of our humble abode. I had stress and insanity coming out my eyeballs till I couldn't see straight any more.
Andy had engineering coming out his nose, he was doing so many problems and equations and projects.
While it may appear that the stress load made his head short and fat, this is not because of the math above his head. I would like to point out that the equation pictured in the image above is not an accurate representation of Andrew's homework. His math involves a lot of pretty squiggles, some stuff that look like the letter S or F, some Greek letters, and [insert numbers and symbols here]/[even more complicated stuff here] kind of things. I just drew the kind of math that I can do! The chimes: Andy made a piano mechanism with a group in one of his classes- they had to do a project that would be able to teach 4th graders something about science. It was a neat project. Especially the part when he cut the pipes to length and hung them on our shower rod and started whacking at them with my 3 pound dumbbells. Ya. Real cool. Berg: Andy's capstone project was for a company called Schlumberger, but the boys called themselves Team Berg. I'm going to let Andy explain that stuff in his own post. It's really neat, but filtered through me, it would probably be more poorly executed algebra.
I just wrote lots of papers and did lots of projects for my English and Humanities classes. Holy snarkwaffles, but that was a long and difficult week. I seem to have snapped before the end, though, because by Wednesday of finals week, I was just floating along, not even caring if I made it to my last final on time. Andy was surprised, but noted that it must be due to the fact that all the stress and insanity had already seeped out of my eyeballs. (See below.)
When Monday the 16th came, I was all sorts of excited. And nervous. Andrew's Evil Test of Doomsdayness and Despair was the next day. He had been studying so hard, but if he bombed the test, then passing the class might not be an option. Unless we used covert action. Like cookies. I make good pie. The plan was to get Andy to bed early so that he would be plenty rested for his big test. Mama and Spud were going to rent a car at the airport and drive down the hour ride to our place, getting here at about 1:00 AM or so. I tidied everything up, then set up the air mattress, and set out blankets on the couch, and fluffed things up to be pretty and cozy. Then I tiptoed into bed where Andy was already dozing.
An hour or so later, my phone rang. Mama told me that she was in front of my door! I leaped out of bed, smashed my glasses on my face, threw a sweater on, and ran out to get the door for her. I made sure to close the bedroom door gently so as to not wake the sleeping engineer. When I opened the door to let Mama in, Spud wasn't with her. I gave her a hug, and went out to the parking lot to help her with the bags. I hugged Spud and dragged some bags up the stairwell with the two of them.
When I got back inside, I noticed a human shaped lump under the neatly made up blankets on the couch. I became seriously peeved- I had spent all that time making this all cute, and Andy comes shambling out of the bedroom and chucks himself in the cute set up when he is SUPPOSED to be asleep?! I was in shock and confusion.
That's right, folks! Daddy came and surprised me! *Please Note: I don't remember what I/other people actually said, only what happened. For verification of truthfulness of events, ask my mother.* Basically, I freaked out and jumped around, then hugged Daddy, then jumped around, then hugged Daddy again, continue ad nauseam. Then we sat down and talked for a long time. I was so happy Daddy came! It was the best graduation gift I could have asked for!
The next morning, we had breakfast, then chatted for a bit, then studied a lot more, and then Andy and I mosied on up the hill to take some tests, while Mama, Daddy, and Spud went to get some last minute things for Spud before he went into the Missionary Training Center. It turns out that my teacher had told us the incorrect time for the final, and so I was there an hour early. Oh well. More study time. I ended up being the third one done, so I felt smart. Andy and I both felt we did well on our tests, which is good. Andy's test mattered. Good thing he studied so much!
I got to hang out with Spud some, just the two of us. It was really nice. I got to talk to him about memories, and future plans, and how awesome his mission call was. He's only been in the MTC for a week and a half, but I feel like it's been forever. I am comforted by knowing that he's doing the right thing in the right place. (More about dropping off Spud in the next post- including my repeated failures with cameras. This was not my week with picture taking technologies.)
Wednesday dawned. The final final day. The day we dropped off Elder Spud at the MTC. The day we would be finished with college.
It happened. It was at this point that I stopped being invested in caring about grades or thinking. My brain shut off with my worrying centers. Mental productivity levels decreased drastically, except the part that came up with creative ways to avoid thinking. That was a go. We took our last finals, and then rushed home. We went out to eat at the Creamery on 9th, since Andy and I had to use up the rest of our meal plan monies before the deadline. We ate, celebrated that finals were over, then fell over and crashed asleep.
And can I just tell you something? Sleep is a wonderful thing. Floating out on the lagoon of sleep after finals week is like sipping cool lemonade freshly poured from one of those awesome fat glass pitchers. It's like lying down in the warm grass with the sprinklers going on a hot, hot day in July. It's like when you're at the cinema, and the movie *FINALLY* starts after all of those looooooong previews. It's also like being hit upside the head with a 20 pound bag of potatoes. You're just knocked out.
