Day 104-108

Well, until Friday, it has been the same old story for the most part. Studying my life away. One of my exams was on Wednesday, Cognitive Psychology. I had to write 3 essays in 2 hours, this made me realize how terrible the system is to test for knowledge of a class. Here is 2 hours, write what you know about 3 topics. First off - what the hell 2 hours?! Not only was I writing as fast as I could the whole entire time, but if you want me to show my damn knowledge of the subject let me write for a longer period of time! I think I am just mad because my hand was cramped for the next 3 hours after the test. Anyway, I wrote one essay on Language, one of Speech Production and one on Speech Perception. I feel like I did a really good job, so, that's good.

Wednesday night was Marc's last night here. We had a little get together at his place and basically all of our friends came. Meaning it turned into a pretty decently sized get together. It was great and I am sure Marc had a good time. It involved lots of debauchery and fun. We had a few giant guy vs girl flip cup games, ten guys vs eight girls to be exact. These were going neck-and-neck (the guys team had some bad flip cup players)... it ended up being 2 to 2 in the series. The final game was epic if I do say so myself, I am the last person to flip to cup, called the Anchor, I beat the girl Anchor by probably .5 of a second. My cup landed flat as hers was probably at a 150 degree angle. The guys went nuts and tackled me, we celebrated like we just won the world series. Gotta love it.

(feel my pain)

Thursday consisted of pure studying. I counted, and I memorized a total of 88 different experiments (including the researchers names and years) as well as all the content I needed for the class. I rehearsed it so many times that I could still recite all I wrote down word for word right now. But when I got into that test room on Friday, and now had 3 hours for 3 exam questions. This time my questions were on facial perception, the sub-components of the prefrontal cortex, and the different routes to vision. My hand never stopped moving, I felt 100% confident in everything I wrote down. I actually put down 85 of the 88 experiments. Talk about some good referencing. Sure, I am being pretty self-loving right now, but damn I felt proud of myself when the time expired. I knew I did everything in my power to prepare and performed to the best that I could. That is how you end a solid semester of studying abroad!

Friday night consisted of celebrations. A little for myself since I just finished school, Benny is leaving on Sunday, and it was Shannon and Carlotta's birthdays! This was all going on as well as the Beltane Fire Festival, which happens once a year on top of Calton Hill... around 10,000-15,000 people show up. We went up there and it was pretty cool, it was actually a little show that this group of fire people put on. They are all naked and painted red, all this symbolism about burning/rebirth etc was in the show. We couldn't really see all of it at all times, and we showed up a few hours after it started, because we didn't know it was a show kind of deal. Still a good time though. At the very end they lit a giant bonfire, some of the red people were dancing next to it. For some reason I had the biggest urge to jump the gate that kept all the pedestrians out and then jump the bonfire, and I mean the biggest urge. So after much debate with myself - I decided to go for it. Captured on video, preserving that moment. I am 100% glad I did it, I felt free for my 1.3 seconds of hang time ;). When we left the festival we headed back to Shannon and Rebeccas flat, where everyone who didn't go to the fire festival was still there celebrating. We all united and had a great time for the rest of the night!