Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da!

[la_belle_laide]

Today was a spectrum. Hard tests, easy tests, good people to talk to, sunshine, terrible traffic.

It really started on my way to school at ridiculous o'clock this morning, with my iPod battery run down and me listening to the radio while sitting in the parking lot known as the LIE. (It took me two hours to get to school. Honestly!) When my iPod runs down I listen to the radio. I have somehow always used the radio as some kind of dumb oracle – not that I really believe in Radio Oracle or anything, but just for my own amusement. These days I pay a little more attention, because sometimes I hear a song that makes me think of Dad. More honestly, sometimes songs feel like signs. Sometimes so much that I can't deny it.

So I heard the Beatles song Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da ,which, you know the chorus, "life goes on"? That was one of my Dad's favorite sayings, along with "You never know." He always told me what I should, and should not do, when he was gone. "Don't be crying all the time. You'll be sad, but you're only feeling sad for yourself, not for the person who's gone. And what are you gonna do? Life goes on." And I remember my brother saying that the day I called him to tell him, he was riding around on the subway, despondent and with nowhere to go. A lady got on the train and sat across from him, with a bag that read in big letters, "LIFE GOES ON." So, since then I've always felt like that was Dad's message to me. Well, to all of us, I guess. Though I try to be really positive about that and take it as something inspiring, it's still hard to come to terms with the fact that he can't just tell me those words.

Well, by the time I got to school I was just trying to be zen and hope that I hadn't missed the beginning of my final. (I hadn't. The teacher was late, too. Ha! :D ) The first final, Qi Gong, was a breeze. The whole class was over in 45 minutes, which gave me some time to study for Asian Bodyworks3. That's fill-in-the-blanks kind of thing, not this multiple choice stuff we always get in America. (My Wonderful Glassworker Friend is from Germany, where exams are actually exams, and she was appalled when she came here and saw all these multiple choices. "It's like they already gave you the answer!" We are spoiled and hand-held here.) That test was a little more challenging, but I think I must have gotten at least in the 90s.

Then I had tons of time to kill. I spent some of it studying, some tutoring, some chatting with a teacher, some of it sitting outside in the sun pretending to study, and much of it talking to some really interesting people. This made my day much more enjoyable. Seemed like everyone was at once both frantic about finals, but still smiling about everything anyway. I actually met a guy who used to train with my Sifu, an actual training brother! What are the chances? He recognized the Chinese writing on my pants. How funny! And his charming friend. ^_^

The final final of the day, kinesiology... well, let's just not talk about that one, shall we? O_O No but seriously, I knew it was going to be challenging, and I really do like challenging tests. Because so many of them have been to damn easy, and sometimes I really feel like I'm sailing through this school. But this test had some flat-out difficult questions, and really by the end of it, I was thinking that I would be happy if I could pull a 90. Which, I usually strive for the clean sweep, 100. I mean, wow. I was stunned.

But! I didn't hit much traffic on my way home. I had the radio on again, and what do you think? Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da! I couldn't not take it as a sign, and I was thinking, you know, "Life goes on, I know. I'm trying!" And then I thought, Well, what if it's not about my life going on? What if the message was about my Dad, more or less?

Which, I know, is weird. I don't mean it in a religious way, which I hope everyone in the world knows by now: I am the least religious person I know, I think. I'm a big science geek and logic-fiend. I'm also Taoist, to a point. As much as I can understand it.

Anyway. That was my day.

Tomorrow I can sleep a little later, spend the rest of the day in school, but only two more finals. Then I'm done for two weeks. Yeah! And off of work this weekend, too! I hope to see Jo-chan this weekend, who, by the way, she got accepted into this amazing college. Jo-chan in college. Words don't even.

But for now, I'm going to Mom's to watch our usual anime, have a snack, a cup of tea, yammer for a while. Then back here and try to get some sleep.

I'm sure I'll have more babbling to unload after the last few finals are over. ^_^


ETA: Wait, how could I forget this moment of awesome? In the cafe today, when I first sat down to study, there were two girls a few tables behind me studying together, and another woman about my age or so, alone at the table in front of them. So the two girls together started quizzing each other and one asked the other, "So, peripheral nervous system. A cluster of cells in the PNS."

And without even blinking, the woman behind me said, "You're a PNS."

I about died laughing and so did the other two girls. I was mostly so pleased that I'm not the only adult woman in the school who is also twelve years old.

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[spatterdash.livejournal.com]

Oh, lala how the life goes on!