This past week has been so incredible. I feel like I've been at full capacity both academically & socially... I think I left off my last post at Thurs. evening, so let's pick up where I left off... =)

Friday: I wandered around in the sunny weather, with good intentions of being productive, which never really were realized. I got a bit of work done on the revising of my thesis, saw the May Pole from a distance, talked to Ashley, talked with some of my firsties from Eng. 101 (ahh I'm going to miss them SO much), ate dinner in my room waiting to hear about the English Dept. t-shirts, etc... Around about 5:30 or 6 I stopped proofreading my thesis to get ready for Senior Ball... I had to do all the usual unnecessary preparations -- like showering & painting my nails, which left little time for the more necessary things -- like getting dressed & doing hair & makeup. Andrew got here super early, so that didn't help, either. He brought a corsage, which was so sweet... So maybe Senior Ball doesn't exactly require a corsage, but people understood once I explained that I missed out on my high school proms & that Andrew is making it up for me by being the best date ever. *Such a fun night!*

We got to Chapin for the dance rather early -- early enough to get free champagne and for me to eat THREE chocolate cake bars from the Black Sheep -- Oh, bliss in a square! It was a gorgeous job with decorations... As you walked in, a jazz band played in the near left hand corner; to the near right the bar was set up... there were park benches, trees, and streetlamps, with various twinkly lights thrown about... perfect for the "Walk in the Park" theme. I enjoyed the jazz immensely, and the DJ somewhat... the DJ got way better, of course, when he started playing '80s music (Madonn'as Like a Prayer, old school rap songs, Michael Jackson's Beat It...) Andrew and I danced, or tried to. I stupidly forgot to bring money for alcohol, so I don't think we were quite as tipsy as we would have needed to be to really, well, make total fools of ourselves. Saw everyone... Karuna, Kathleen, Claudia, Laura K., Jess & Lauren... quite fun!

Saturday morning we slept way way in, since we didn't get to sleep till nearly 4 am. I worked on my thesis after grabbing lunch, and then Andrew drove into Amherst for Thai food while I worked at proofing things and applying his last minute edits to my stories. After dinner (he had something involving beef & fried rice & string beans & zucchini that was good, I had usual pad thai, of course), it was time to get ready for the concert... The opener was very political, and Ani Difranco was amazing. Andrew enjoyed her, too -- and she read a poem, which made me happy. Very happy, peaceful evening after thesis stress.

I worked on my thesis late into Sat. night... around 3 am I had a formatting problem after trying to adjust the margins to make room for the binding. It was dreadful, dreadful... Andrew sat and tried to explain why it had happened, and I got so made at whoever the hell created the Word program, and then Andrew had to sit there and hold me as I got all teary & went through the entire 130-some pages looking for errors. Didn't get to sleep till quite late (or early depending).

In the morning I dragged my ass to brunch thinking that we were going to have a play reading... since no one but me and Ariel showed up, though, we decided to just eat together. I brought some food back to Andrew... and settled in for creating my table of contents, acknowledgements page, etc... Had an emergency conference with Corinne over where to put the works cited pages and such... Then we had to buy paper... And I printed my thesis, for free, I refuse to pay to print my thesis on my own paper on this campus...! So we got the thesis in its binder, and then I could rest... ie., go out for dinner. We went to Fedora's... nostalgic! I had the blueberry beer as recommended by Beth... soooo good.

In the evening... I had to start reading for Monday's last Stoppard class... and we breaked for Desperate Housewives (it's getting juicy!) Then more reading... and bed.

This morning I had to get up early, finish reading the play... then I napped since I had extra time... submitted my work for the Phi Beta Kappa award, submitted my thesis, the clean, bound copy, to the English Dept, grabbed lunch, communicated with the t-shirt people, finally ate, got worried that I needed two extra copies of my thesis in the dept for it to be official, was told that's not true, rushed back to Stoppard class, & had an awesome class (I was wide awake & (I hope) saying relevant things throughout). Afterwards, after a couple of errands, I went to the Blessing & Sending of the Seniors Ceremony in Abby Chapel. It was awesome... We all sat on this big circular labyrinth thing on the stage, and each religious/ spiritual group blessed us with chants, songs, or little symbolic items (such as potpourri, salt, poems). Then we each created a square with our names on them to be part of a paper quilt. Quite nice... I had to slip out early in case the t-shirt guy called to drop off the boxes... and I walked out with everyone singing on stage & a misty rainy day outside the chapel.

The t-shirts are finally here!!! I wore one to dinner to advertise... ran into lots of people, including Rabia & Kiara... so I hope we sell out!!

That's all for now... So, wow... tomorrow morning I have a brief presentation in 319, then all I have is my thesis defense and two papers! WOW. Tomorrow is my last day of undergrad classes. And tomorrow is going to be incredible, but more on that later (after it's actually happened =)