It's all coming full circle

Well, today has been quite a day. In a week from today I leave Sevilla for good. I can't believe it. And in two days my family will be here. Tomorrow is my last official day on this study abroad program...then I become a tourist again. I can't believe this. Where the hell has the time gone. I've been walking around with a constant knot in my stomach. Okay, let us begin.
I woke up to my alarm this morning very unhappy about my mere 4.5 hours of sleep. But I had to study. I had my last exam this afternoon and the end was oh so near. Just thinking about being completely done at 7pm was enough motivation for me to stay awake. I got ready, took what would be one of my last showers here, then headed to Starbucks where I read over Jordi's handouts from tutoria until about 12:45. I met up with Stacey at the center who was just finishing "El acero de Madrid". She looked dead. She really did pull an all-nighter and still never got to one of the works, so it was up to me to fill her in on what happened in it. I checked my email and such until Stacey finished the play, then I went to OpenCor to buy myself lunch, then we sat at the table in the computer room and discussed and studied until leaving for the exam at 4:30. The center was really quiet, only a small handful of us are left now. It's so strange. Sam and Herbie read some of my blog from the past and got a kick out of it...we all shared some laughs and memories today. Sigh. I can't believe that tomorrow will be my last day chilling at the center...that's my homebase right there! Oh man, I'm going to miss all of this. Nervous, and anxious to get it over with, and overstuffed with a copious amount of information on Lope de Vega, Stacey and I took our last walk to the University of Sevilla as students. Wow. I would soon be done forever with my studies at the Universidad de Sevilla. I can't believe it. We went upstairs to the room, the lecture hall where we usually have class, Mercedes de los Reyes and another proctor arrived late, and then they whisked us all out of the room so they could call us in one at a time (like for my Iconografia exam). I was one of the first people called in so I had to wait forever for her to finally hand out the exams. The only good part about waiting for me was that I was seated next to that over-achiever Spanish girl in my class, and she was discussing some last minute stuff with the people sitting around us. So I got a good last minute review, and I took notes on the stuff that she was saying on my scratch sheet of paper. Niiiiiice. Then the exams were handed out; we had three questions that were very basic and straightforward. We were presented with a passage from one of Lope's plays, and we had to identify which it was and the context of the passage, then we had to identify what period of Lope's writing the play falls under and why, and then identify how Lope demonstrates his declared use of meter in a document he wrote in 1609 about the new art of writing theatre. Needless to say, I was very pleased to see that the passage was a blatant excerpt from "El perro del hortelano", one of the plays that I understood the most. Yes. So I definitely passed this exam; in fact, I know that I did very well on it. Nice. Thanks to Jordi and his awesome tutorias I was more than prepared for this thing...he saved the semester, that Jordi. I'm so proud because most of the semester I feel like I wasn't really following what was going on, and here I was excelling on the final exam. I am so very pleased with it. What a way to go out, I tell ya. After two hours I finished, sweaty (the air conditioning was broken in the testing room, ugh), and happy. And yet sad. I walked out the door and realized that it was a) summer vacation, b) the official start of my life as a college senior (what the f) and c) the end of study abroad. I was done. Done at the University of Sevilla, done with studying abroad...I'll never have this opportunity again. I can't believe it. I'm also done with my junior year...junior year! Where had the time gone?? Ugh. As I walked out I got misty-eyed because the end was just so bittersweet. I hung out on the front lawn of the University taking pictures of everything. I don't want to leave this place. Nope. I tore myself away and walked to the Starbucks over there to wait for Stacey who was still taking the exam. It was weird going to Starbucks without anything to do...I mean, I didn't know what to do with myself! So I just bought an iced tea and...read the paper. Yeah, I read the newspaper. I finally had some freedom to relax and indulge in the mundane. Soon Stacey showed up and we were both, obviously, in very good spirits. I mean, it was summer break! And exams were done! My hell week was OVER! That damned hell week. Hehe, that's kind of punny: damned hell week. Stacey was laughing at how her brain was ready to shut off...she was going on maybe a half an hour of sleep last night. That crazy girl. Usually we'd go out and celebrate the end of school and one of our last nights here, but we were just way too tired and decided to just rent a movie and lay low. Besides, it's one of our last nights not only in our homestay, but also as roommates. Why not take advantage of it as much as possible? We'll have plenty of opportunities next fall to go out together, but we'll never be roommates again, and that makes me sad. Stacey has been an absolutely amazing roommate and I feel blessed to have been put in such a fortunate situation. She's an awesome person and will miss being her roomie! Sniff. But seriously, I will miss her. This is the first time since freshman year that I've actually had a roommate, and it's been a breath of fresh air. I love that girl. So we went to the video store on Asuncion and picked out American Psycho because not only have we been wanting to see it, but I've been talking about Christian Bale a lot recently for some reason, and had many conversations about 80's pop music (which I had heard was a major theme in that movie). Renting the movie was complicated because they needed a phone number, so I gave them mine since Stacey couldn't remember her's, and then it wasn't listed, so we needed to give him our info and he needed a form of ID, but I didn't have ID but Stacey had her driver's license and he accepted it, then he wanted our address but none of us know our address, just our street. Funny that we never learned that. Luckily, the guy working the desk was cool and still let us rent the movie. Haha, we're just complicated Americans, what can I say? On the way home we then ran into Maruja's granddaughter (the one who was over during the awkward dinner last night) and we walked with her home and made good conversation. She's a cool 11-year-old, she asked us if we liked Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen and told us about how they live in New York. She was also carrying the latest Harry Potter...she's a fan! Yay! Oh man, now that school's out I can ready Harry Potter! Yes! Turns out she lives down the street from Maruja...I guess almost all of Maruja's kids live within walking distance from her...how nice! We got home and ate dinner with Maruja, which was very good. We had Spanish tortilla which made us so happy since we've been craving Spanish tortilla for awhile now, and the tomato-pepper frittata with it. For dessert we got melon. Dinner conversation was really good and happy. Maruja was really cheery but also seemed kind of sad about it coming to an end. We asked if she'd be getting students again in the fall and she said yes, and she told us about how she loves having girls come stay with her every semester because it keeps her from getting bored. I love that woman and will miss her dearly. I'll never forget her, she really helped to make this experience everything that it has been. After dinner I did some blogging and checked my email, then we migrated over to the living room, settled on the couch, and watched American Psycho. Needless to say the title describes it pretty well. That movie is great aesthetically, but let me tell you, what a fucked up movie in general. So weird. Eerie. Gruesome. However, Christian Bale, despite being a psycho killer man, is very sexy and that kind of made it all worth it. That and the 80's pop music (gotta love the Phil Collins and Huey Lewis) theme throughout the film. Luckily the film wasn't too long so Stacey was able to be in bed at a decent hour (she has just passed out like none other). I can't believe that tomorrow I have to pack this room up. I'm going to take pictures: y'all should see how I've Lisa-fied it. Hehe. I talked to my family at about 10:30 my time and the taxi was just pulling up to take them to the airport to fly out here to my continent. They get into London at around noonish tomorrow, they spend a night in London, then arrive in Sevilla Wednesday morning. I can't believe that right now they are on their way over here. I can't wait to see them. I never thought that this day would come. Whenever I would think about my family coming here it seemed like ages away...and now they're coming over! Right now! I'm so excited, I can't handle it!! So that's what's keeping me in good spirits despite my sadness about leaving and the program ending. Tomorrow's my last real day here and I've got a ton to do so I must sleep. Wow, this entry directly parallels my first ever entry in this blog: I talked about just starting to pack, all that I needed to do, getting ready to leave and being anxious and excited and sad all at the same time. So weird how this is all coming full circle.