it's been awhileee

I'm sorry I haven't written in awhile. I've been so sooo SO BUSY! These last two weeks in Barcelona are going to give me gray hair. Side note: I actually plucked a gray hair from my head the other morning...sweeeet. Anyway! This week I had a presentation and project due in Psych, a 8 page paper for Sport and Culture, a cumulative final in Macro, a 8 page paper for Religion, andddd a spanish presentation. Adding to my stress levels, that just so happen to be through the roof already, is the fact that I have 4 finals next week. 3, yes T-H-R-E-E, back to back to back on Tuesday, 1 on Wednesday, and then I leave bright and early Thursday morning. I'm pretty sure when I walk off the plane I'm going to immediately collapse and sleep for 17 hours right in the terminal. Hear that, Dad? Bring a tent.

Thankfully, I started my Sport paper two weeks ago, so I just had to put some finishing touches on it this week. My sport paper was an analysis of global sport superstars like Michael Jordan and David Beckham, and whether or not we'll ever see atheletes, like LeBron James and Cristiano Ronaldo, reach that level of superstardom. I handed a rough draft in early and my teacher loved it, so it was good to have that one outta the way. The paper was due on Tuesday and we had to hand it in at the bullfighting ring in Barcelona, where we were having a field trip. I start making my way to the ring (about a 10 minute walk and 5 minute metro ride), and I'm jamming along with my Mp3 player, thinking about how beautiful it is outside, and I say to myself, "It's gonna be a good day." I haven't been having a great past few days so I was just trying to remind myself to stay positive. I'll let you know how that worked out for me. Our class was supposed to meet right outside of the Monumental metro stop. This sounds corny, but I love coming up the escalator from the metro station and out into a new part of the city that I've never seen before. It's kind of like an exciting, big reveal for me when I finally get to the city street. So I'm going up the escalator, theres a blue sky above me, I'm in a good mood, and I'm totally enjoying the new view as I come out of the metro station. Once at the top of the escalator, I go to walk out into the street and put my "best foot forward". Yeahhh. My "best foot" stepped directly into a pile of vomit. I was wearing flip-flops. There was major slippage. It took place infront of my entire sport class. You can guess how my day went. :)

Studying for my Macro final was a pain in the butt x's 487539. Our teacher told us material from the entire semester would be "fair game" and that we should be prepared for anything. So I proceeded to make a study guide from over 250 pages in the book and all of my class notes. I stayed up til 3 am to study Monday night, 1am Tuesday night, and woke up at 7:30am to study this morning. I probably spent about 15-20 hours studying for this thing and I STILL didn't feel confident walking into that exam. I initially had no idea how to do the first question on the test. Great confidence booster. Pissed off at the world, my test, and my Macro teacher, I was incredibly tempted to write, "Your the teacher, why don't you tell me?" as the answer to the question. I ended up skipping to the other two questions on the test and had some sort of idea how to do them. I've learned over the years that if I stare at the test questions long enough, sometimes the answers come to me. Thankfully, that was the case with this test. I was really unsure of everything in the beginning, but ended up leaving with answers I was pretty confident with. Right after the test I went back to our room and looked up answers in the book. All my answers were right as a whole, I just had a few mistakes with minor details. I guess I should just be happy I didn't fail it; lord knows me and economics don't mix well. Oh, and the questions on the test only covered material from half the semester. Thank you Mr. Macro Teacher...I definitely had time to spare to study for things that weren't going to be on the test at all. Let me impart some of my unnecessary knowledge on you. I sincerely hope your taxes increase, causing your incomes level to decrease, as well as your consumption levels, causing a decrease in aggregate demand, thus causing a decrease in YOUR EMPLOYMENT!!!!!!!!!!! :)

The Psych presentation went well. The teacher is insane...probably clinically. I'm afraid to speak in that class because she snaps at you if you get the answer wrong and accuses you of not reading the homework assignments. As you can imagine, that makes class, especially presentations, pretty tense and scary. Our group did well though. She said she liked it and actually cracked a smile. We'll see how we actually do though. Last presentation/project, one group got a 100 on their presentation and a 65 on their project. Now, the presentation is based on the project, so how one can get a 35 point difference on two things that are essentially the same, is beyond me. I try not to question. My other presentation, for Spanish, was supposed to be Monday, so I worked my nerves up nicely for that one. Monday comes and my teacher tells me I'm going Wednesday. Alright..I'll take it. Today rolls around and I'm sweating bullets again, reciting my entire 6 minute speech outloud on the street, like a crazy woman, as I walked to main campus. I get there, get up to the front of the classroom to do my presentation, and try to load my flash drive to open my powerpoint. Just my luck. For some reason unbeknownst to me, my powerpoint would not open on this computer. Thankfully, my teacher is the nicest lady ever and said I can go on Monday. MONDAY?!?! I just want to get this freaking thing over with. But nooo, I will anxiously wait for Monday to roll around so I can finally be done with this thing. Lord knows I don't need the stress. Presentations in English make me nervous enough. Presentations in Spanish? Let's just say: Quiero orinar en mis pantelones. Translation: I want to pee my pants.

So what's up for me this weekend? Studying. Studying. Writing a paper. Studying. Going out at night. Studying. CAN'T WAIT! I can't believe it's my last weekend in Barcelona. I can't believe I'm going to be spending 80% of it studying. Oh well, so it goes. If I don't blog much the next week, I hope you can understand. I love and miss you all. BUT DON'T YOU WORRY...I'll be taking the States by storm in approximately 7 days.

See you all soon! :)