It feels weird sometimes that I’ve gone from being a first-year to a senior. I’ve skipped over the sophomore slump, but at the same time, I feel like I’m feeling those feels just as hard as my 2017 friends. Did I forget how to school over the summer? Yep, I sure did. Everything is harder this year, from coming up with paper topics to getting out of bed. Sure, some of that is just senior stress, but a little of it is that whole not-a-special-first-year thing.

To reconcile these feelings with my extremely limited time at the mothership, I’ve started to just say yes to everything. Should I write this blog while I still have time? Yes. Should I go to as many events on campus as possible, even if they have literally nothing to do with my life? Yes.

Should I be a swinger at Lantern Night? Yes.

So I made my traditions mistresses aware of my desire to work my arm muscles until they twitched swinging my lantern to celebrate the Class of 2018. I don’t know many first-years, but I remember my own Lantern Night, and I wanted to be as involved as possible in making them feel the same sense of deep tradition and welcoming that I felt last year. I learned the words to Pallas Athena, even though it starts at notes I haven’t been able to hit since age 12. I stood next to one of my nearest and dearest, Miranda (Class of 2016), and I lit my dual-colored lantern with other Mawrters.

It was pretty magical, from the beautiful night sky to the complete lack of precipitation. The weather held, for what I’ve been told was the first time in four years. At Step Sing, which was significantly less full than it was on Parade Night, the McBrides enlisted the help of every class to sing our song, “Stand By Me.” We’re a small bunch anyway, but on Lantern Night, there was an especially little group. We’re pretty mighty, though, and we were yelling out those words like our lives depended on it. In all, a good night. Have any of my readers been swingers? What was your favorite part of Lantern Night?

It seems a little bit nuts that break is over in a few hours. I’m not ready! I told Twitter as much yesterday:

fall break can’t be over yet. i haven’t gotten through any full seasons of anything on netflix.

— jj thoman (@jjdactyl) October 18, 2014

I feel a little bit like a failure, because I didn’t demolish any full series, I only ordered takeout once, and I only went out for beers one time- and was home by 9:00 that night. Even my GRE experience was kind of anticlimactic. After a week of stressing out about it, and taking practice exams, and blocking out piles of time to recover, the exam came and went with very little fanfare.

I will say, though, that now it all feels kind of real. Prior to this week, I was approaching the process of applying to graduate programs with an, “I have lots of time, and of course I’m going to get in!” attitude. I don’t know where it came from, and that kind of weird confidence isn’t actually productive; feeling like it was a given was making it really hard to get anything actually done. Now that one of the biggest parts of the process is over, and I feel good enough about how I did that I’m not going to bother taking the exam a second time, it feels like…

I’m hoping that the fact that I’ve quit my off-campus job is going to help me get through the next two months in one piece. I didn’t really realize how much time I was spending with my brain only half devoted to academia, because of that job. It’s hard to see a problem when you’re knee-deep in it. Now that I’m on the other side, I feel like a giant, epic weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I know it seems silly, that my retail job was so much extra stress, but it was. Now that stress is gone, and even though it’s a bummer that I won’t get a discount on soap anymore, it feels worth it for the sanity that I might have regained.

Come back to me in two weeks, when November is here and all of a sudden I only have a month to finish my applications. That sanity may or may not still be around.

So far, this semester has brought just about the exact amount of stress that I was expecting. I may have thought my friends were exaggerating last year, when they complained about the overlapping deadlines in classes and thesis, and the ridiculous extra work that goes into applying to graduate programs…

Sorry if I doubted you to your faces, 2014. That was not cool. I am filled with regret, and the only thing making it better is the way my cat, Wilson, has decided to not remove himself from my lap for the duration of Fall Break.

Many of my friends are traveling this week, either to their homes or to awesome vacation spots (shoutout to Syona in Copenhagen!). I’m jealous, because I miss my parents and my sister a lot, and I miss seeing the Hudson Valley in the Fall. The way the Catskills look when the leaves are changing…truly, there is no place on Earth more beautiful. I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to have grown up in a place so gorgeous, with New York a quick ride on the Metro-North away, and more cider donuts than I could ever eat (not for lack of trying). I’m not there this week, though, because I still have work. No such thing as mid-October break when you’re working.

I think I’m managing to make the best of it! I scheduled an appointment to take the GRE on Friday morning, and the days and nights before then are filled with practice exams, thesis reading, and preparation for the following week. Don’t worry- I’m scheduling in some fun, too. On Tuesday, I’m meeting up with a friend to build a board game based on the Bryn Mawr bucket list, and on Saturday, I get to drink away the sorrow of my GRE experience.

It won’t be that bad. Maybe. Tell me about your standardized testing/grad school/lap cat experiences!