Thursday, December 27, 2012

And phew.

Happy two days after Christmas everyone!

No really. That's what I heard on the radio this morning.

Ridiculous.

But I do hope you had some nice holidays. We did.

It finally started snowing for reals in Tahoe, so we've been skiing. And sitting on wind hold. And skiing some more. And then gaping at two mile long gondola lines. And then ditching gondola lines for some backcountry skiing on the ridge instead. And then snowblowing the driveway.

And repeat.


But whatever - it's finally snowing, so it's happier around this place.

And also school is over for the semester so phewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. It's happier around my Inside The Head place, too.

See, I really wanted to be past that first semester of Going Back To School. Even more than being past it, I wanted to have the grades in front of me to prove that I'd done it.

And even more than having the grades in front of me, I wanted them to be As.

Straight ones.

Because I did not turn our lives upside down for Bs, people. I just did not.

And that fact alone was stressing me out more than trying to learn 100 plants' Latin names, sections 200-602 of the National Organic Rule or how to calculate the winter heating costs for a 10,000 square foot greenhouse in Santa Cruz County.

The What Ifs were making me nutty.

What if I studied all that stuff and my grades weren't the Straight Nerdy As I wanted so bad down to my bones?

What if I quit my job, spent half a year driving up and down highway 17 to school, irretrievably muddied up my shiny red rain boots, bored Bubba half to death with talk of CCOF this and compliant compost that and then...Bs?

WHAT IF FAILURE?

BLECH.

Blech, I tell you. That would be blech. Failure and blech.

You know how I get.

Anyway, I was starting to freak out a little bit, is what I'm saying. Toward the end of the semester, shit started to get real.

Those grades that I wanted so bad down to my bones were getting closer to being finalized by term papers, and final projects and finals and WHAT IFs were taking root in my brains.

It was a dark time for a minute there.

Thankfully it was a dark time which I responded to differently than I did during my undergrad.

Specifically, I did not get shitfaced, decide that "If I don't know it by now, I'm not going to know it." and then blissfully forget about my finals until the moment they were plopped in front of me on the last day of class.

I did not do specifically that.

I studied. OH MY GOD DID I STUDY. (Also, there was some shitfacing BUT ONLY AFTER STUDYING. That's the rule now.)

People, I've never studied so hard. Which may sound ridiculous when you know that I was studying for Horticulture and that probably seems easier to comprehend than, say, anything I took during my undergrad (except for maybe Humor Writing which wasn't so much about studying as it was about placating the wannabe comedian "professor" running the class), but I will tell you that when I want As - hard studying is the only way that it's going to happen.

I'm no genius that automatically commits all important facts to memory. The only photographic things that I own have "Canon" stamped on their fronts. In order for me to remember things - even super important things that I'm very interested in and even riveted by - I have to hear them, do them, write them, rewrite them, tell them to someone else, meditate on them, sing a song where they are the antagonist and protagonist, tattoo a memorable acronym to the backs of my hands and hire a nice yet skeptical man to write them in the sky behind a biplane every day for a week.

This is the only way that my brain will finally give up and accept new information.

So I did almost all of those things in preparation for my finals and then...


So, phew.

21 comments:

  1. Utterly impressive, though never doubted for a second that you'd be that straight A student that I used to hate/be jealous of in college. You are my hero. I am inspired and hope to get the hell out of advertising/media within the next 5 years.
    Hope to see you soon!!! Happy New Year!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ooh! Let's get together soon! We're just about ready to keg a new beer that Bubba's brewed - wanna come down for a tasting?

      Delete
    2. Would love to come and see your sweet face and drink home-brewed beer! I'm around (as always). Let me know...

      Delete
  2. Woo-hoo! And I bet your cohorts are pissed as hell that you got Straight A's while they're pulling B's and C's. It's called "studying" children, you should try it!

    My cohorts loved and hated me because, I, too studied my ass off and got A's :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I really thought I'd be alone in my nerdiness, but I'm not. There are a lot of nerds! It's awesome!

      Also, it's a relief to not be the only one in class who's all "Ooh Ooh Ooh - what was 200.201 again? TELL ME MORE."

      Delete
  3. Nice work! I hope you put your report card on the fridge. :) I am impatiently waiting for my grades to be posted. Unfortunately, they aren't due until January 2 at my college. Sigh.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JANUARY 2? Rude. *Fingers crossed for you*

      Delete
  4. Congratulations, and well done! You're nicely showing up us lazy ones too chicken to go back to school. Keep rockin' those shiny red boots; they're clearly helping!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Eventually your chicken-ness will subside and you'll go. Just a matter of time. It took me more than five years to finally sack up and do it for reals.

      Plus, get red boots.

      Delete
  5. Congratulations, and well done! You're nicely showing up us lazy ones too chicken to go back to school. Keep rockin' those shiny red boots; they're clearly helping!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Merely showing you that it can be done if you're crazy enough. And if your boots are shiny enough. I'm sure that's part of it.

      Delete
  6. No no no. It should be, "Happy Kristin's birthday, everyone!" THAT'S the important thing to remember on December 27.

    Well done on the grades, Finn. I never doubted you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT - Happy Kristin's Birthday to Everyone!

      Those As are for you, doll.

      Delete
  7. Good job!! I know what you mean about the striving-for-A's. I work really hard for them, and I think as an adult student they mean more. They're not just video-game-level achievement points, they're the end result of busting our asses. So again...good job! We knew you could do it. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They DO mean more. It's validation that, while I may LOOK crazy, I'm at least not stupid.

      Or at least I've learned how to study.

      We'll see how the upcoming semesters go...

      Delete
  8. WooHoo -- Congratulations Finny -- you're a genius and I hope Bubba recognizes you as such LOL! Looks like you're having a fab time skiing too!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'd hardly call myself a genius, but I'll take it from you, Anna! I know that you know these things.

      Delete
  9. I just want the shitfaced part. Ok and the back country stuff. Can you do a heating analysis for a green house in Tahoe?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can do shitfaced. I can do backcountry (well, enough for the ridge). I can find you a good greenhouse contractor to analyze Tahoe heating/cooling/construction/ventilation/etc. What I learned in this class was that there's a reason that professionals exist. And those professionals have a LOT more than one class under their belts.

      Delete

[2013 update: You can't comment as an anonymous person anymore. Too many douchebags were leaving bullshit SPAM comments and my inbox was getting flooded, but if you're here to comment in a real way like a real person, go to it.]

Look at you commenting, that's fun.

So, here's the thing with commenting, unless you have an email address associated with your own profile, your comment will still post, but I won't have an email address with which to reply to you personally.

Sucks, right?

Anyway, to remedy this, I usually come back to my posts and post replies in the comment field with you.

But, if you ever want to email me directly to talk about pumpkins or shoes or what it's like to spend a good part of your day Swiffering - shoot me an email to finnyknitsATgmailDOTcom.

Cheers.