Tests and papers

I realize I post a lot about school here...but it's a major new force in my life, so that's why.

This weekend I had my third class, at which I had to hand in a paper, give a presentation based on the paper, and take a midterm. I think the paper and the presentation were okay. I studied like a maniac for the test (or at least, I tried to remember how to study) and it seemed to go okay, too. However, I did have kind of a breakdown Friday night that involved wailing, "There isn't room in my head for all this information! There's nowhere for it to go! I can't do this! I'll forget it all and I'll fail! I should just quit now!"

Brock handled all this extremely well. He told me I should go to bed and get some sleep, then get up early and study. He turned out to be quite right about this, as the early morning studying was way more effective than the late night studying, and all that info was perched at the front of my brain come test time - perfectly poised to spill out onto my test paper and away from my memory. I'm waiting to see how I did, but I don't think it was awful so I was fairly pleased. Considering I had to absorb seven book chapters and about 10 hours of lectures in just two weeks and then take a test, I didn't think I could have done any more to prepare, anyway.

I have to say, though, that I really have to learn APA style. We didn't have to use it for this paper, but we do have to use it for another paper. I used MLA as an undergrad and now at work I use a weird hybrid of AP style, corporate style and "Jessie style," as appropriate. So when I sat down to write my paper for school I was questioning all kinds of things...like do you put one space after a period or two? Do you indent your paragraphs or just put an extra return in between them? How do bold and italics (two of my favorite writing tools) work on a college paper? It just amazes me how much my writing style has changed in the past seven years.

On another note, for those of you who read this but whom I don't get to talk to very often, my dad is having surgery for an aortic aneurysm on Thursday this week. I will be down for that so I can hang out at the hospital with my mom and my sister, and then I have to drive home and be ready to catch a plane for a business trip early on Friday morning. So that's going to be kind of crazy. We're all just hoping surgery goes smoothly and Dad doesn't get too cranky without food or coffee in the morning. This is a real danger that I don't think the medical team fully understands. He seems like a really sweet, easygoing guy until you take away his caffeine, and then bad things start to happen...so please think happy thoughts for my dad on Thursday that all will go well.