As if it wasn't completely apparent from my plethora of rants on this website (read: the only four entries I wrote for the months of April and May combined), my spring semester of graduate school was about as much fun as shaking hands with Rush Limbaugh. School went from being a cool place to learn new things to being a place where gouging my eyes out with a melon baller seemed like better use of my time. Luckily, this summer I have only one class for summer school, and the absolute lack of stress from it is enough to add hopefully one or two years on to the ten years of my life the spring 2009 semester has no doubt cost me. One spring class remains for me to complete, though, an issue of contention that in a week or two I will be finally putting to rest. The side effect of this one extended class has been a surprisingly positive one, in the form of a classmate who's becoming quite a good friend.

We're in the same situation, she and I, and our recent evening of a five-hour study session has cemented our friendship. Without the pressure of attending this class every week, without the clamor of other classmates for grades and minute details whose relevance are lost even on the professor, and without the constant bombardment of the inexplicable notion that if we cannot do this, we have no business in the field, actual learning is taking place. We're able to move at our own pace and digest the information in ways that we can understand, and lo and behold, we're also prone to poke fun at the information we're studying, a sign that it is, in fact, something of interest to us.

We got rather carried away tonight when I realized that a certain bone in your nose sounds vaguely sexual. And while it's a full-on inside joke that I doubt any others might find funny, I'm still chuckling about the hilarity of someone rubbing up on your Vomer, and I'm pretty sure the mention of the Vomer as a salty midnight snack left the two of us useless for a good five minutes since we could barely breathe.

The point is, though, that my previous frustration with this material is dissipating, and a somewhat tepid enjoyment is beginning to take its place. I suppose we all learn in our own time, and the older I get, the more true that seems. I'm grateful for the second chance I've been given. I think I'll make it through all right after all.