Ready for a slowing-down

This term is almost over.

My second-to-last assignment is due tonight at midnight, and the last one is due Thursday at midnight. From Friday on (or erlier if I get that last assignment done early) I have a week to relax. A week of nothing to worry about after work, nothing to feel guilty about not doing on the weekends. A week of sleep undisturbed by dreams of Excel spreadsheets that somehow just won't line up correctly and calculations that never seem to end because the formulas keep circling back on themselves. A week of making dinner - real, actual, whole-meal dinners - myself just because I can; I have that time to spend as I see fit. A week of staying up hours past my bedtime not because I'm working on assignments but because Matt and I are wrapped up on the couch watching all the movies we haven't been able to see together for the past five and a half weeks.

I won't have to worry about how I'll make up the time I'll lose if I leave work early to work on school stuff, or how I'll pay the bills if I don't make up that time. I won't have to try to study and research in those random free minutes at work and hope that whatever information I gather in such a broken manner makes sense later when it's time to apply it to a paper. I won't have to knock myself senseless with Melatonin in order to get half a night's good (hopefully dreamless) sleep, knowing full well that it will leave me fuzzy-headed and listless for a good five or six hours the next day, because I won't take it till I'm ready to go to bed, and such late hours mean I don't get a full 8 hours of sleep as recommended on the bottle.

This term is almost over, and I'm glad for it. I'm in need of it. I'm ready to slow down, with the coming of Autumn, and slowly meander into The October Country. I'm ready for a good book in hand, hot coffee or tea nearby, and a purring, drooling cat (or boyfriend) on my lap to keep me motionless and snuggly-warmfor the better part of the day.

I'm ready for a slowing-down.

Last night I was up till almost midnight calculating lines of figures in Excel, typing out descriptoins of the formulas used for those calculations to go with the tabels and charts copied and pasted from Excel to Power Point, and I'm stil not done. I still need to recommend either warehouse location A or warehouse location B as the better prospect for a future, 5-year project with a salvage value far less than the initial investment for either location. Then I have to perform a sensitivity analysis - a "what-if," if you will - to determine at what financial point either prospect would no longer be profitable. You know, just in case. Just to make me do a few more calculations.

Yes, I'm leaving work early today, but I still have sick and vacation time left to use to bring myself up to 80 hours for this paycheck, so it's all good. Unless I get sick later. But, that's a worry for later; this is now. I'll stock up on Airborne and tea and lucky rabit feet and all should be swell.

So what plans do I have for my week off? Nothing much, yet, and I kind of like it that way. This Friday I'll be going in to have some touch-ups done on my snake tattoo at noon, and we'll be having a barbecue with some friends for dinner. Matt is taking Saturday off to spend the day with me (now that I won't be stuck with my nose in a book or glued to the computer screen all day and evening), but we haven't decided what - if anything - we'll do. Maybe we'll spend the day outside, enjoying a picnic and the beautiful weather. Maybe we'll go see a movie. Maybe we'll stay in and watch a movie at home - or spend the whole day watching movies, piled warm on the couch with snacks. I don't know, and I don't care. I'll be with him with nothing nagging at the back of mind telling me I really should be studying; that's enough for me. Beyond Saturday, I have no plans - not even tenative ones. I kinda want to make plans to do things I can't when I have class, but at the same time I kimda want to just take it day by day, enjoying the lack of a schedule and the freedom that brings.

Maybe I'll work on some poetry. I've been dying to play with one of my older poems, one of my favorites that depserately needs some serious re-working. Old spider-webby skull-white moon/Bobs low on black horizon, smiling/Like Death's head greeting the saints/Who forgot to pray/After questioning faith./Eye-white gleam of moon and starlight glistens ... And it only gets better from there. It's the philosophical part of it I'm having trouble wording - I could describe till I'm blue in the face.

Maybe I'll draw. I have great leviathans in my head churning, wanting out, and mist-shrouded faeire glens waiting for the color to capture them - they beckon and I want to give in and play.

Maybe I'll design that new banner for this blog, once I settle on a new name. There've been a few suggestions, and they're good, but I'm not sold on anything yet. I'm still open to ideas. Light, dark, funny, philosophical, odd, random ... whatever.

Maybe, I'll do nothing more than play Sacred till I dream of that; certainly a good magical sword that's seen bloodier days can chase away the demons of Excel. Surely, adventuring through ghost- and minotaur-filled caves can ward off the baying hellhounds of contribution margins and mixed costs. Surely.

Maybe I'll do nothing. We'll see, and that theory alone is beautiful to me.