Here Comes the Sun

Tomorrow it will have been a week since I returned to Cambridge, and today was the first time I have seen the sun since that time. It has been a bit gray and cloudy.. to say the least.

This morning was incredibly beautiful, however, as I walked from my house, through Christ's pieces to the bus station to catch the bus to church. The sky was bright blue, the sun was shining, there was not a cloud in the sky.. and it was not even bitterly cold! It was certainly a bright welcome and hopefully a sign of things to come in the week ahead, as this past week was, although manageable, a bit of a challenge.

Reasons for this include the following:

1) Jetlag. It makes everything worse

2) No sun = no vitamin D = enough said.

3) Exams are in approximately 7 weeks, and that pre-exam feeling of stress/tension/time to buckle down has gone viral. Its a funny thing, since I am pretty confident we all will be fine... except maybe the random "Joe six pack" from "Real America" who has been traveling the whole time and never went to class. hm.

To counter these challenges, I took some measures to make the week better, and they were actually actions that I think will help my mental state for the remainder of my time here.

1) I rearranged my room. Better feng shui = better sleep (even when I am jetlagged)

2) My week is basically structured like a work week; class/reading from about 8 a.m. to 4 or 5 p.m., and then evenings free for making dinner, and engaging in my new found interest which leads me to number...

3) My relationship with "The West Wing" has commenced after several, and I mean several, years of resisting. A friend offered to lend me Season 1 on DVD, and needless to say, I am hooked on the clever political dialogue, the dramatic political situations the WH seems to find itself in daily, and Rob Lowe playing deputy speech writer. In fact, I am almost positive hearing that Rob Lowe was on the West Wing was the final selling point. Sold. Hooked. And now I have my evening activities (if I am not, of course, reading or doing pilates or something else constructive with my evening life..)

The pressure is on, but in all honestly there is a part of me that really revels in the "stress" of intense studying and learning. I am learning so much and being forced to think in new ways (particularly in my law class) that really makes the experience academically stimulating and always interesting.

Finally, I added several new books to my "book list" (on the right hand), check them out.

If I am to recommend just 1 book out of all of them, it would most likely be "A Peace to End All Peace" --- its a phenomenal, comprehensive history of the making of the Middle East post-World War I. It is a good mix of historical anecdotes of Churchill and his Cabinet and of course the deep and intense politics behind the colonialist moves that changed that region of the world, most likely forever. (Also #2 -- check out Edward Said. He's a legend..)