Midterms, what a Riot

First and foremost. I am alive and well. Yes, there were riots this weekend. However, they were on the other side of the river and I stayed far, far away (I thought it best to follow the advice of Lei and my mom....). I was holed up in my apartment all weekend studying. The only parts of it that I saw were the endless helicopters noisily flying past my windows, video clips on line. It looks like it got really scary, and some of my less bright acquaintances in my classes ventured out and were regaling us with their stories today.

Now that that is out of the way..... I am in the homestretch! Three of my four midterms are done. Huzzah!! The last two, however, were brutal. My Law midterm, as excited as I was about it, was a total beast. I had just over an hour to write four essays. FYI, these essays were not simple regurgitate what we have learned essays. No. No, these were solve the problems of Darfur essays. Literally. I had to write essays for and against the legality of humanitarian intervention, one on the Security Council and its thoughts on humanitarian intervention, and one that compared and contrasted the three major stances on international law and which I found most persuasive and sided with. My hand was ready to fall off. I finished three minutes early and all my classmates looked at me like I had six heads.

The midterm that I had today was equally as interesting. My prof had given us no guidelines for the midterm, other than it would be on politics and media and their relation in Italy. Pretty much the class title. Super helpful. I never had such vague profs in my entire life. This particular prof also showed up ten minutes late to my midterm. No joke. He said we could stay late to finish, but I had a class right after on the other campus, so not an option for me. So basically, I had fifty minutes to write four essays, totaling twelve pages in a blue book. It is a real shame that those things cross international borders. My hand is truly beginning to hate me.

Now I am in the throws of studying for my Italian midterm. It is cumulative, so I have lots of stuff to review, but I have all day tomorrow to study.

I also finished my Human Trafficking paper (a week early, huzzah!) This gives me ample time to edit it and see if John Cabot profs are at all willing to talk to you about your papers. So far the track record of helpfulness would be a resounding "NO," but here is to hoping.

In happier, less studious news, we made the peanut butter cupcakes again. We baked them last night as a study break. And tonight, Erica, Kelsey, and I took another break to frost them (and of course, test them, yum yum...). This time they dipped in in the center. Erica was bemoaning this when I looked on the bright side (Pocahontas speech paid off, way to go Dad!) and pointed out that the concave nature of the cupcakes would make them easier to frost. My roomies looked at me and started laughing. Apparently they don't appreciate my diction. Humph.