Doom. My Qual, that wonderful horrible thing, is over at last, but it will be a long time before I stop thinking about fish and all those stupid E’s. Just… don’t ask. I have been waiting for over two years to take the Junior qualifying exam, an intense test to see if you’re good enough for the department you want to major in. Frankly, I was looking forward to the Linguistics Qual, which consists of a text in some unknown language that you have to say as much as you can about. It sounded like fun. It’s why I wanted to be a linguistics major.

After a day of staring at the thing, I had a small breakdown. Instead of a complex jigsaw puzzle with things slowly but surely falling into place, it was something from Myst — something with no mental footholds, no leads, and no hope. It promised only to be a showcase of my incompetency.

I suppose it’s not too late to fail, but after a bit of crying, running, and sleep, I found my spirits raised and the patterns in the text easier to spot. Things progressed steadily from there — I even finished early! Technically it’s not due until tomorrow afternoon, but I can never bring myself to look things over that “one last time.” Now I just have to worry about my paper on Algonquian puns and wait for judgement on my linguistic competence.

One thing that helped pull me through the dark times last week was Avatar: The Last Airbender. I honestly don’t know how this show evaded me for so long, but let me say now, it is brilliant! The animation is fluid, the characters are complex, the fight scenes are purely awesome, and the world is imbued with a casual creativity that impresses me every single episode. Heck, I’m geeking out just thinking about it. Time for season two!