Sweet Silver Lining

And now a blog post! Brought to you by recovering from sleep deprivation Tayma!

Wow, wow, wow has this been a crazy week! There's been so much going on that I literally don't know where I should begin. So...I guess I'll be logical and start from the beginning?

This crazy week of studying, little sleep, and way more cheesecake than I would like to admit started off on an unproductive note for the most part. I spent all of Monday writing a paper and submitting a draft before learning that I left out half of the material on my paper. When the prompt says "use the following passages," I thought it meant that those were the ones to choose from - not that we had to include every passage and an explication of each. So not only did I spend all of Monday analyzing, outlining, and writing my paper, I also spent half of Tuesday doing the same and REWRITING it. All of Monday and half of Tuesday was also dedicated to listening to over 10 hours of lecture over production and perception of speech sounds, courtesy of my Linguistics course.

And as if Finals week wasn't stressful enough as is, my apartment complex decided this was the perfect time to do a check that all of the fire alarms in the building were working properly. Which meant that on Tuesday, from 11:00a to 3:00p - while people (and by people, I include myself) mind you are studying - the fire alarms were being intentionally set off in intervals of about 20 minutes. Trying to study a whole semester worth of material is hard enough as is, but add in loud beeping and the distraction level on a scale of 1-10 jumps to about a 17. I've never played music in my headphones SO LOUDLY in my life.

That was only the tip of the iceberg with the fire alarms on that day. That night, my roommate and I were awoken by fire alarms in our apartment at 3 in the morning because our heater decided that it wanted to smell like burnt hair and smoke. Needless to say, after 20 minutes of trying to get the fire alarms off by fanning them with our notes, and the assistance of one of our neighbors from two floors below to turn them off, we were both up and ready to study for the final we had 6 hours later. Did I mention I got a 64 on that final? Yeah - I can blame it all on the fire alarms all I want to, but the fact of the matter is, that class was harder than I was letting on all semester, and by the end of it, recollection of the material was just not happening. Praise Jesus that I got a B in that class, though. By the  grace of God, I'm pretty sure.

So after a week of studying for my Phonetics final, which I bombed in an epic fashion, and writing and rewriting my paper, which I managed to get an A- on, I realized that I had less than 12 hours to study for an Italian final that I hadn't even begun revision for. Now this has no dramatic story linked to it aside from arriving at the building 2 hours early, the lights turning on by themselves, and the creepy feeling you get when you're alone in a large empty building. Despite my lack of confidence in my performance on the exam, I pulled a 95 on the final! Which gave me a 94 in the course - equating to an A!

As previously mentioned, I got a B in my fiction writing class, which means - as long as my GPA calculation is correct, and I am pretty positive that it is - I got the necessary 3.0 GPA to apply to Sussex meeting all of the requirements.

Shall we all breathe a sigh of relief together? Breathe in....release....siiiiiiigh. Yes, I can breathe again.

So, what exactly does this mean? Well, it means a few things:

1. My semester is over and I can stop stressing! Well...for a month before I start classes again for the Spring.
2. I am beginning my application this weekend! Officially! I'm so absolutely excited!!
3. Saving money is going to have to kick into super mega high gear.
4. I'm just really happy and doing little happy dances that are adorable and dorky. You can't see them, but you'll just have to take my word for that one.

And on that super duper happy note, I'm going to close this out. But the next post is going to have all the information that I have about the program and funding and financial things, so if you're reading, definitely keep an eye out for that!

Also - my cousin, Cheryl-Ann, is currently in South Africa!! She's going to be there for the next 6 weeks saving souls and bringing people to Jesus Christ, so if you could pray for her and her team while they are over there, I would be ever so thankful, and I know she would be, too!

Alright, lovelies - until next time!

Keep Calm and Brighton On!

-Tayma xx

Wowza, that is a lot of exclamation points up there.