Finally.

One year and 39 credit hours down.

Three more years and 87 more credit hours to go.

I had 4 exams this week. Some really stressful and some not so stressful and some that I made more stressful than I should have. Today after my last exam I crashed in the living room, slept for 2 hours and dreamt strange dreams of the randomest people coming to see me and friends at Payap getting lost, and then getting found again. I then woke up long enough to zombie my way to my dentist appointment, barely able to even enjoy the fact that the sky was the bluest I had seen in months, and that the rain of the past few days had cleared off all the smog and the mountain was entirely visible. After my appointment and some lunch, I zombied back home where I spent the afternoon sprawled on the couch, trying to revive myself. And not succeeding.

Down deep beneath the fog somewhere is a feeling of satisfaction and victory. I can’t really feel it now, but it’s there. And sometimes I just want to cry.

I kept on thinking thinking today that I felt rather top heavy. That if I moved around too fast or if someone would poke me with a pin, random information would leak out, like what the Chinese character for “mian bao” is, or what the definition is of “brand equity.” (In case you’re wondering, Chinese and Marketing are not a part of my major, but a GE course and a free elective I took this spring. My major is English Communications.)

I still have a final paper to submit next week, and a few other projects that need to be wrapped up. But tomorrow I am heading to the mountains to dip my feet in a quick-rushing stream while I sip on some hot tea or coffee. And think about absolutely nothing.

And then in about a week, I’m off for home for the summer. Home, where in a little over a month the fields will be yellow with waves of wheat and combines will be droning in the distance late at night and Chinese and Marketing exams are far, far away.

Which makes me think of this poem:

Harvest Song

And I must go down to the fields again

Through the shimmer of summer heat,

And walk through the waves of deepening gold

The oceans of ripening wheat;

Then I’ll stand on the edge where the grass still grows

Green by the amber shore,

And feast my eyes with a fierce wild joy

For the harvest is once more.

And I must go to where the sky is pinned

To the earth like an up-turned bowl

Where the hot wind sighs its searing breath

Against my face, and I’ll feed my soul

By the wide expanse of dying wheat

That moves and ripples and flies

And sings the song of my native blood

Harvest beneath the Kansas skies.*

 

Soon I’ll be there. I can’t wait.

But for now I am grateful. Grateful for a family to go home to, and grateful for friends here who have blessed me and stood beside me, and grateful for the way God has blessed me tangibly in the last few weeks, whether in ways big or small.

Only three more years to go! 🙂

*First published in Echoes of Eternity  in 2013.

Picture from pixabay.com.