Ya, I'm in a strange mood. I'm easily irretable and agitated. I find myself both tired and awake, bored and overwhelmed at the same time. Studio is over and this is the aftermath of working non stop for the past month. I feel slightly disconnected from my non-studio friends here, and I really don't have the time to reconnect because the gigantic dark cloud of Friday the 13th, the day of my stats and music final, looms ahead.

The fact that all my grades (except city planning....A+ baby) are entirely up in the air right now has me very nervous. I've worked so damn hard in stats and studio, and to be unsure what my grades are this late is tough. And my music class was a joke, I felt like I wasted units taking that class. Now I have to force myself to care about it for the sake of my GPA. These two finals are very important, and they both are on the same day. I'm having a tough time figuring out how to balance the study load.

And of course there's this weird feeling of being homesick from studio......you spend so much time with one group of people, and even though it can unbelievably hardwork, you still miss their company. It's like coming home from war. What I really need is a break between now and finals to readjust, but I won't get that. Gotta shift gears and jump right from the studio to the study wagon.

And ...being in Berkeley during the month of Decemeber is painfull. It just does not feel like Christmas here, especially in the dorms. There are no Christmas lights except on Telegraph Avenue (which smells like shit when it rains....which it is). TV Christmas specials, movies, and songs seem hallow when your watching or listening to them by yourself in your dorm room instead of with family and surrounded by the warmth of home.

And there's so many little things at home that I miss. My mom does a fantastic job of decorating the house despite her tough work schedule, and I miss seeing that when I wake up in the morning. I'd like to help set up the Nacimiento. I'd like to have my dad make hot chocolate in the evening and watch Christmas movies with my whole family. I'd like to go outside and stand in front of our house and admire the lights and explore other neighborhoods to see how they've decorated for the holidays. Heck, I even have a hankering to go to church. And most importantly, I'd like to be there for my grandparents, especially my grandpa, during this tough week for him. Time is precious, especially time with my grandparents.

So I'm anxious to go home. Even more anxious to get these finals over with. Come Friday some huge weights will be lifted off my shoulders, and if things go as planned I might go to SF with my studio section to celebrate our collective survival and the holidays. Maybe then it'll start to feel a little more like Christmas here in Berkeley.