11 days and counting

Hi all!
So eleven days before I am done for the semester, and I have to admit, this is the first time in my academic career that I've reached this stage in the semester without constantly saying to myself, "I can't wait until the semester's over!". (Germany not included.) This semester has been actually fairly enjoyable. For the past week or so I've been focusing on final projects (which I started early!) and have really enjoyed digging into a subject and becoming a mini-expert on it. This bodes well for when I actually start doing research. (Don't ask about the summer situation. That's still up in the air.) On the other hand actually sitting down and writing the paper is somewhat mind-numbing, and I can already see that the actual writing of the thesis may not be much fun. But that's still a LONG way off.
Otherwise classes ended last Friday in a bang with the famous "Slope Day" event. Basically the long-standing tradition of students spending the last day of spring semester hanging out on "The Slope" (a large hill just down from the 'Art's Quad' on campus) and drinking has morphed into a Cornell-sponsored party/concert on the slope that's regulated so things don't get out of hand. There's a stage with bands that play in the afternoon, and a beer tent where you have to show your ID about 12 times to get your hand on cheep, crappy beer. We were fortunate this year to have *perfect*, and I mean PERFECT, weather. It made an afternoon of sitting outside listening to good(?) music an ideal end to the semester. Here's a photo of the masses:



Hope everything's going well with you all! Cheers!