Midterm Madness

Sound: "The Number of the Beast" by Iron Maiden

There are three things constantly on my mind right now: Midterms, The Netherlands, and Windy Rain.

Midterms:

I have never been good at midterms. When it's finals time, I'm super productive. I'm like a stereotypical jock pumped up on steroids, running around screaming, "Yeah! Finals! I'm going to do work, write papers, kick butt, take names, and go home and eat my Mom's enchiladas! WOOOOO!" Midterms, not so much. During midterm season, I kind of wander around my area, get distracted really easily, and hate on everything (case in point, my essay on The Rivals currently reads: "The Rivals. Artifice. Successful? Eventually... Do we learn anything? Not really... Stupid Georgian people.") I have a little less than two weeks to write three papers and finish a journal. Actually, I'm almost done with the journal because it was the artsiest thing on my to-do list, and I really just wanted to color. I know that I'll get everything done, and hopefully everything will be done well, but I just don't want to do it. Midterms are such a fun mood killer.

The Netherlands:

Once I finish midterms, I get to go to The Netherlands! I'm spending eight days (four in The Hague and four in Amsterdam) in that lovely land of tulips, windmills, and legalized hedonism. I'm ridiculously excited and have a giant list of things to do (and never fear, I will do all of them!). My only minor concern is my (and Mia's) apparent inability to pronounce Dutch words (except Scheveningen- I'm really, really, really good at saying that). However, we've decided that we're going to solve this problem by bringing a pad of paper with us and writing down whichever place/food/etc. we're trying to get and just showing the paper to people. Which I actually don't like, because I try to at least master basic pronunciation of the home language of wherever I'm visiting. But Dutch is really hard! I mean, let's just look at the word "uitsmijter." Honestly, how am I supposed to know how to pronounce that (and if anyone [aka Goldstein family] knows, please help a girl out)?

So maybe in addition to enjoying Dutch culture, I'll also develop a basic understanding of the Dutch language. I think that's a good goal.

Windy Rain:

We all know it rains in London. But did you know it actually hurricanes? Maybe not officially, but I think that when the wind is so strong that two umbrellas break in a three-day period, that counts as a hurricane. I'm not sure if the issue is the wind itself, or perhaps my umbrellas are just weeny colonist American umbrellas, but something has to stop. Because umbrellas are expensive in London, and I need to save my money for The Netherlands.

Peace out, cubscouts.

EDIT: My music for this post actually has something to do with my life, and is not a random itunes occurrence. This weekend Film4 has been showing "The Omen" trilogy. And the flat has been watching it. Because "The Omen" is so bad, it's fantastic.