Holidays, oh and school too of course.

I absolutely love, love, love the holidays.
They are not what they used to be. Our family has undergone a lot of changes over the years due to some very unfortunate events, and the holidays are nothing of what they used to be, but aside from all of that, this time of year makes my heart happy.
When I was living in Hawaii there were a lot of years I was not able to go home for Thanksgiving. Thankfully, now that I'm living in California, the hour and 45 min flight (that costs much less than a 6 hour $500+ flight from Hawaii) has allowed me to go home for Thanksgiving and Christmas (Thank you Southwest for your incredible deals!!!).
I go home in 12 days for Thanksgiving! Which is wonderful and stressful at the same time. It means I have 12 days until Fall quarter is over which means I have 5 days until I have a 30+ page paper, a 15+ page paper AND a 30 min oral presentation due. I cannot wait for November 17th, it means I will have all of that stuff behind me and just one more final to worry about the following week, and I can handle that.
All these papers/presentation, however, are stressing me out!! I have devoted this weekend to completing these, along with my usual homework. I am not allowing myself to do anything of enjoyment this weekend because I absolutely have got to be productive and get all of that accomplished.
I finally pushed through my latest slump on 'lacking-all-motivation-for-anything-school-related" last weekend and was able to get at least a rough start to most of what is due next week. (Thank goodness!) but I still have a long, long way to go.
I was actually at a dinner party last night with a group of 1st years (those who started the program this year) and I found myself saying "Oh no, 2nd year is much, much better, I'm way less stressed than I was 1st year." and then following that up with comments about the 30+ page and 15+ page paper I have looming and they looked puzzled and said "And you think 2nd year is easier?!?"
 It's possible I've just learned to dissociate from the stress now, and don't even realize how overwhelmed I'm actually feeling.

Some how a post about the holidays, inevitably ended up being a post about school and stress. Story of my life. :)