Mild Mental Exhaustion.

Alright, the honest opinion of a college freshman on her first final exam.

Thank god I only have one.

I took my final exam today - Introduction to Logic, a philosophy course that studies how people are supposed to reason and argue - logically, not based in rhetoric.  But it. Was. ROUGH.

It wasn't "ohmygodI'mgoingtofailanddropoutandlivelikeahippyfortherestofmylife" bad, it was just... Sit on my bed for an hour and stare at the crack in the ceiling bad.

To be quite frank though. I am lucky. My finals are all final "assignments" - papers that have to be submitted electronically. I only had one formal exam; I'm now done going into Hunter for the semester, unless I want to. My friends though, my poor, poor friends, they have papers and finals!

Finals week is rough. But take solace, Hunter does do whatever they can to make this as easy as they can. The other week they had a de-stress zone, with coloring books and crayons and massages and PlayDoh and cookies and tea and a nap-zone. And tonight we had breakfast for dinner provided by Macaulay and the USG and Hunter. So guess who didn't have to worry about feeding herself?

Plus, the really nice Macaulay Building near Lincoln Center is open 24 hours from December 12 to December 21. So, should you actually need to focus, there is a quiet, comfortable space that will let you relax and concentrate.

And, its very cute and festive over there. Which I appreciate, because the closest thing I've had to Christmas is the pine branch that I got whacked in the face with the other night, walking home. Yeah, people in Manhattan are... pushy.

To bridge over to Christmas (My apologies and best wishes to people who celebrate Hanukkah or Kwanza or Yule or anything else, I just like Christmas so this is what I'm focusing on.) My parents are coming in on Saturday to pick me up! We're going to do all the cute touristy things that everyone here secretly wants to do but will never admit to it because they're touristy and we're not supposed to behave like tourists.

So, family To-See list:
The Tree in Bryant Park ( Much cuter than Rockefeller Plaza)
Time Square
Ellen's Stardust Diner
Yaffa
St.Mark's Place
Some strange Disney Lightshow on Madison and 61st?
Hunter College! (I'm not certain my little brother has seen it yet)
The miracle that is the Subway (My parents have never used it)
The Shops at Bryant Park
Grand Central (I like the architecture)
And whatever we stumble upon in between.

And then I go home that night! And I get to spend Christmas with my family, and New Years with my high school friends!
I'm actually really excited - they all have so many great adventures to tell me about. (One of my friends got a boyfriend and he might come up to NYC during the break. I've been put in charge of finding cute, not-touristy things for them to do). I have a really tight group of friends from back home, and we're going to spend most of the time we're not working together. Four months is a long time to go without seeing people you're used to seeing every day.

But I live on Long Island - just like many kids who go to Hunter. So it will be nice to be able to still see my college friends - after all, I've been living with them for four months.

That's my life in a nutshell, folks. Finals, papers, friends, food, Christmas, and a vacation that I cannot wait for. And I couldn't ask for more.