...The Lovers, The Dreamers, and Me.

Remember that one time when I very gutsily (yep) studied for an exam, and felt so proud because it was the first time I had ever studied?

Yeah, that was all multi-colored fluff and bubbles.

Compared to this time, you see.

Last night I had the great pleasure of hanging out with some dear friends after church. Since my church starts at 7pm, any sort of after-partying would have to go quite late. And it did. I got home at midnight, and I knew I had a test in my Astronomy class that I had not studied for much at all.

So this morning, I decided to be the student I never was.

I printed out the study guide (which our teacher sent us that includes all of the correct answers to the test) and brought it to work (at a daycare, I might add). When the kiddies were all sleeping at naptime, I brought out the study guide and a pen and wreaked havoc. This may or may not have had anything to do with the fact that I was TOTALLY buzzed on Vietnamese coffee brought in by one of the lovely daycare parents.

By the end of the hour that study guide was COVERED in arrows, stars, circles, notes, connections, comics, sketches, and lines from silly songs that ALL added up to helping me remember the answers to all of these stupid questions. I sang everything from Queen to Feist to Three Doors Down to Eiffel 65. I gave Mars zits and made Venus sing Freddie Mercury. I turned the Sun into the Verizon guy, stood Jupiter and Saturn next to each other shouting "Wheeeeeee!", and somehow managed to create a feasible connection between Saturn's Roche Limit and...Ferrero Rocher. Earth took a shower, fields belong OUTSIDE, and Ites Bite.

It was a thing of beauty. In fact, it's sitting next to me right now and I still can't believe it.

Add to that the quizzing that me and my seating partner did right before the test, and the lab we completed on spectra and how it relates to the peak intensity of the energy from stars, and I was on my way.

Five minutes. A six-page test took me five minutes. I knew every question backwards and forwards. I was singing, I was turning the universe on its head.

There was even a question on there that she mixed up just to confuse us! Switching the landmarks of Saturn and Jupiter, eh? Just to trip me up? I know your tricks, Professor!

So I'm motoring along, filling in Scantron squares like some sort of academic lunatic, and I was thinking...why did I never do this before?

But if the secret is drinking Vietnamese coffee every day, I don't think I could manage it. Seriously. That stuff has a bite to it.

The fun aside before I end this post: We've been studying light, right? Reflection, refraction, spectra, visible light, spectral lines...etc. Leaving school tonight, after turning in my exam and massaging my aching fingers, I happened to say a little sentence prayer thanking God for what I think may even be an A+ test (and therefore one more stepping-stone to graduating this quarter).

After a crazy stormy afternoon and evening, you'll never guess what I saw...right in front of me...heading home.

The very symbol of refracted light itself. Yes, indeed, a rainbow.

I would have thought it was really cheesy if it weren't for hearing myself exclaim, "WOW! A CONTINUOUS SPECTRUM!"

Somehow I managed to push the whole experience from cheese-territory into the Land of Awesome.

Go me.

-The GLS