Sitting in the cafe, my fingers did not hesitate as they made the cursor highlight the "send" button and clicked my way out of semester number one of graduate school. Completing my last exam Tuesday morning, I finished two big essays for Science, Technology, and International Affiars and Contemporary Russian Politics and proceeded to have a mid afternoon glass of prosecco with some fellow students who are also finished.

Finals weeks are kind of an odd time around here. Two weeks without real class but with enormous obligations sitting sweetly upon one's shoulders like a rather sharp-toed crow. With each exam that returns to the professor, one of the dreadful little scavengers releases its vicelike grip and flies off... hopefully to a land uninhabited by humans. Before these birds take off, though, we all gain a sense of comradery as we realize we're all in this together. Bonds form with entire classes as you divide the lectures and spend evenings eating junk and sharing ideas about the questions we will face the exam.

Student Government decided to hold nightly coffee and tea breaks with cookies for those burning the midnight oil- amazing how something so small on our part can really break up the evening.

Poor Antonia seems to be needing more than coffee to get through this evening...

Other nice diversions included watching the new president swear in, amid phantom Yo Yo Ma performances, botched oaths, and Lowery's longing for a day when the red man can get ahead man. We broadcast the event in the auditorium live and I got to see my former boss demonstrate his uncanny ability to get free media coverage wherever it's available.

So inspired were my classmates that yes, even a room full of liberal grad students rose and sang along with the national anthem... see, one hat really can bring change!

Sometimes, to deal with stress, monkeys help... we had a few that invaded our library one evening after a few too many cups of the aforementioned coffee...

I joined the theater club and am proud to say I am starring opposite the male monkey in that photo in one of a series of one act plays we are preparing for April.

I had two Russian language exams, one verbal/listening and one written, a Macroeconomics final, International Trade Theory, and Contemporary Russian Politics. The politics one was my last exam and the one about which I was most nervous because it was my first essay exam (as opposed to economics or a language) in about five years! Fortunately, I got to spend two hours writing about my homeboy Putin so it went fairly smoothly. Finals were very different this time around than when I took them in college. Now when I finish, I don't even worry about the grade becasue I truly feel like I understand the subject matter and that's suddenly more important to me... wow, nerdom is strong with this one!

In two days, I am off to London for a weekend of sight seeing before two days of SAIS-organized site visits to various organizations that have agreed to talk to a group of us about grown up jobs. Hope all is well with everyone! Cheers to the end of a great (and long- two preterms plus a full semester plus christmas break means the whole thing lasted over six months!) semester!