Best. Day. Ever.

I'm serious.  Today was probably the best day of my entire semester....what a way to end my first year of grad school!!

I had my last final (church history) this morning at 10:00; I woke up at 7:30 and was all nervous and jittery, and even though I KNEW I hadn't, I felt like I'd missed the exam.  So I ended up getting to campus an hour early, did some last minute studying, and then conquered the final with considerable victory.  Unlike the midterm, the questions were fair and easy (instead of asking things like what Adolf van Harnack's favorite cheese was...that's an exaggeration, but the midterm was nearly of that caliber).  It still feels kind of unreal that I'll never have to sit through a church history class (or test) again...or that I'm halfway through my seminary career (chronologically, at least...content-wise, I'll actually take summer and January terms too, effectively adding another semester.  But I'll still theoretically graduate next May).

After studying, I went and heard the Dalai Lama speak...because that's what everyone does after finals are over, right?  Anyway, it was really cool...Laura Bush was in the audience, so it was kind of like a two-for-one famous people shindig.  I'd write wonderful things about it, but it's nearly 1:00AM and I'm getting sleepy, and I REALLY want to tell you about the evening, which was when I went a-painting with the girls from my Bible study.  (I'll most likely talk more about the Dalai Lama tomorrow, never fear).

My friend Sara's birthday is coming up, and so our life group went to G'nosh, a painting studio that has classes where they teach you to paint a specific picture, step-by-step.  This means that arts-and-crafts-challenged people like me have a fighting chance at making something worthy of home display.  And it was really, really fun!  Classes on weeknights are $25, and they provide you with all the necessary supplies, guidance, and encouragement you could want (and they let you bring snacks: cupcakes and wine, on our part).  Tonight one of the artists also had her ADORABLE two-month old puppy with her.  It was precious.  Our class only had about 20 people or so, and the instructors were really great...the one leading had an Australian accent, which made her seem all the more knowledgeable somehow.

We were painting the "rustic vase."  The example was all beautiful and realistic looking and stuff, and I seriously doubted my ability to succeed.  As my friends can tell you, I was freaking out over practically every step.  It turned out really great though...actually, everyone's looked really good! I guess that was inevitable, but along the way I really had doubts that mine would look anything like the example that the lead artist was painting...I haven't painted a picture since the art class I took somewhere around 9th/10th grade, and the steps along the way certainly don't look all that artistic (more like elementary art class than Van Gogh).

Here's a chronology of how my painting progressed:

Step one: paint the canvas yellow and white.

 Then came the part where we painted in the table.  Observation: I'm not good at blending.  This would become a constant source of chagrin throughout the night.  We also outlined the vase, which made me doubt the entire future of the painting...

Then we started defining the vase.  Still having my doubts...

..but, more hopeful after rounding out some more shading on the vase, and successfully rustic-ing up the background.  After this, things got intense with putting a red glaze over the vase, and drawing out branches and using our fingertips to paint cherry blossoms all over the place.  Since my fingers were covered with paint, I therefore didn't take any more process pictures...

...but here's the finished product!  Not too shabby, right?

I was SO happy with how it turned out!  Everybody's looked really great...here's our group picture, proving that we all possess some modicum of artistic ability:

So yay for art!  And yay for the Dalai Lama!  And yay for Laura Bush!  And yay for finishing my first year of grad school!  And yay for getting to see family in just a couple days!

Like I said.  Best day ever.