Final Week of Michaelmas Term

Time flies when you are in grad school. 

I always thought that phrase was true for my four years at Syracuse, but I find myself wishing time would slow down even more now, that I'm at LSE.  I landed in London on September 17th, and next week, December 17th, I'm flying home for winter break. It literally feels like that I just moved in the other day- with lugging my numerous bags full of purchases to make my flat "me." Yet, here we are. The final week of the first term of grad school under my belt, well almost. 

I've been going to school for 12 weeks straight now. Most other programs have been only going for 10 weeks, but since we had our pre-semester math camp, life hasn't slowed down since September 24th. Hard work pays off. I find myself much more confident approaching math related solutions in my courses, econometrics has become my favorite course, and I'm not as stressed as I was at the beginning. Friendships have been solidified, the main bartender at the George knows me, and I have my usual daily routine worked out.  

But, I've got to say, I need a break. 

Over break, I plan on doing a lot of review for all four of the courses as well as begin to work ahead and look at past final exams. Without taking finals this semester, I've only had some work graded with much it being formative. STATA problem sets have helped me wrap my head around concepts of heteroskedasticity, collinerarity, B subscript zero, and omitted variable bias, but mastering still has to come. Break will also be good as I can see my family, attend a basketball game as an alumni, sleep, and just relax. 

Yet, before my head and body officially agree that it is break time, I've got to get through this week. Here's the schedule for the final week:

Looks fairly tame? Huh?

I've got two group projects due this week. One that is presented in class and graded on the spot. The other, we present, receive feedback, and submit the final project after making changes. I'm going to see Mumford and Sons this week, juggle a group dinner, attend two holiday parties, and get to one birthday bash. All of that is in addition to STATA, weekly economics homework, meetings and sleep. 

But, you know what? Why not finish with a bang?