Alright! The summer semester has finished!

And none too soon. My head was beginning to go bonkers from the non-stop studying.

But, it also feels strange to have stopped studying, if that can be believed. My schedule up until Friday at 10AM (the time of the final exam), had been filled solely with studying pathology. I always knew what I would be doing in the mornings, afternoons and evenings of everyday. My daily calendar was filled with studying and my life revolved around it.

Now, with the conclusion of the final exam, all of the sudden my daily schedule seems to be out of synch. Where once I never had to plan on what to do (as it was always just studying), now I am actively looking for ways to fill my time. The whole world seems to be open with possibilities for these next four weeks until the fall semester starts. I wonder if this is how people feel when they retire. It's almost as if something inside is missing. It must be that habits are hard to break and once a person who has been ingrained in a certain way of life is taken out of their familiar environment, they feel out of place and perhaps even empty. If I'm already rambling-on about this subject after only 7 weeks of intensive pathology studying, I wonder how it's going to be when I finally retire 30-40 years down the road. I'm done for. I can understand a little bit now why some people choose to never retire. I'll just have to wait and see if I'm one of those people.

But in the meantime, I as well as all of my classmates have plenty of things that we need to catch up on. I've decided that I won't be going back to California this vacation in an effort to save money. Although a big part of me would like to see Hanako and my family, my previous experiences living away from home have given me the fortitude to live independently. I'll be just fine here in Morgantown and I'll find plenty of things to do. Or, I might just start studying again in preparation for the fall. Oh, I wish that were a joke. I'll give myself two weeks.