A Free Woman

I'm free!  Finished with private classes, and finished with exams. :)  How strange, the nagging feeling that I should be doing something else rather than blogging has disappeared--what a relief!  I guess I could be beginning to pack my bags since I'm leaving for the States in just two days, but... these rare moments of freedom need to be documented, so here goes:

Since I only had four classes this semester, my exam schedule was much shorter than usual.  I took two yesterday and two this morning and then caught the train home to be here in time for lunch.  Like every Saturday we went to eat at my mother-in-law's house.  Although she quite often prepares too much food and Angelines usually ends up arguing with her about cooking for an army when she knows there are just three of us, today she had the excuse that it is my last Saturday in La Roda. :)  She very sweetly said that she wanted to send me off with a special meal.  Angelines couldn't say anything to that and so we had a very nice, very filling lunch: tortilla española  (a specialty of hers), clams, filetes empanados and a big green salad.  Of course there were also peaches and cherries for dessert.  Sound good?  It was!

Back to my exams:  Unless my instincts are way off, I think these might have been the best exams I've done so far in my studies here.  I was most worried about my music exam because even though I had done very well during the year, the test seemed complicated.  We had to listen to and identify the period (Middle ages-XX century) of three different pieces and then write a brief commentary of each--instruments involved, the tempo, the dynamics, and justify the period identification.  Although we had had a lot of practice with this during the semester and I had been listening like crazy to all the music, I was still a little nervous.  The second part of the exam was to develop one of the units we'd studied during the semester in three pages; for example: Classicism and Romanticism in music (!).  In the end, all was well.  I know that I correctly identified the three listenings and I think I did a fairly complete (although very summarized) development of the unit selected.

My other exams were in the three classes that were all so similar.  Do you remember my commenting about that at the beginning of the semester?  In the end, their similarities were helpful for studying purposes because in total there was less material than really corresponds to three different classes, if you know what I mean.  The exams were fairly easy.  All of them had a multiple choice section which was pretty tricky; but in each of them there was also a section of short answer questions and practical applications which I'm pretty sure I nailed.  I know that I passed all of them and as I say, if my instinct isn't completely off, I'm pretty sure I did very well. :)

Now I'm back at home waiting for the heat to subside somewhat so I can take my pooch for her paseo.

I'll be seeing most of you so soon, I can hardly believe it.  Why is the end of things always such a rush?  Even in situations when we want to savor the moment, the end always flashes by in a whirl and we're left wondering what happened and clumsily taking the next step.  Frustrating.