I awoke this morning and rolled over to see the large, digital numbers on my alarm clock saying, "7:49 AM". It wouldn't have been a problem except that the final exam for my Espanol Basico II final exam was scheduled to begin at 8!

I jumped out of bed and stumbled toward the shower. Ten minutes later, I had showered and shaved and thrown on a clean t-shirt, my camo cargoes, and a pair of flip flops...and I was out the door. Joey came to check on me just as I was leaving to make sure I was awake. I was. Sort-of. It was now one minute until 8. Thank God for Tico time!

By the time I walked quickly into the entrance of Veritas 10 minutes later, I was wide awake and had my review sheets out trying to drill those direct object pronouns into my head one last time. The first pleasant surprise came when my professor handed us our exams first-thing when she came into the class room. Usually, we spent the first hour or so of exam-day singing Spanish songs and doing other weird activities, which they probably think helps us calm down before an exam. The second pleasant surprise came when the exam that she handed us was only about 4 pages long. The midterm exam was more than double that!

Yesterday, I scratched all my plans (including my daily 1.5 hour workout at the gym) and devoted the afternoon/evening to studying for today's exam. I walked to Bagelmans after lunch (very similar to Panera) and spent the day reviewing all the material from the past few weeks and writing up review sheets. It was a really cheerful, productive afternoon and, now that I've already finished the final exam, I can see that it was also very worthwhile.

This weekend, I'm going with my host sisters and my roommate to my host family's beach house in Carrillo. I hear the place there is beautiful and the beaches are amazing. I can't wait! It'll be a great getaway after studying so hard for that exam. I'm looking forward to relaxing on the beach and getting some more sun. Maybe I'll finally finish Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins, too. I've put it on the backburner lately, but it's a fantastic book and I can't wait to get back into it.

One of my best friends from my university back in the States, Travis, is flying in on Sunday evening to visit for a week. It's going to be a lot of fun to hang out with him again and show him around San Jose.

More updates soon...have a great weekend. Off to Carrillo!