Finals

I am in the middle of preparing for finals week, spending Friday here at home with Garm (that's the dog we adopted last summer). We are here listening to the groovy sounds of Alicia Keys, analyzing poetry. Garm isn't too useful in that respect, but he tries his best.

He actually is very good at his second job, which is stress relief. I'm not sure if he is aware he has this job, but he performs it excellently. During those moments when you just want to throw all your text books in a pile and say "To hell with it!" he makes himself available for a quick game of fetch in the back yard, and after a few tosses of the ball, everything seems less overwhelming. Also, if you chuck the ball at the garage really hard, it makes a satisfying noise (and if the ball is slobbery enough, a nice muddy print). Add a really cute dog on top of the cathartic ball-throwing, and you have grade A stress management.

Everything here in Montana is nice, which I admit is very frustrating if you're trapped inside with homework. But at least I know everything will still be there on Thursday when I'm done with finals, and then I can enjoy it.

Also, it is very hard to be down about things when your printer is so polite. It greets me whenever I turn it on and before making copies asks me graciously to "Please wait momentarily". Try as I might, I just can't get mad at it.