Yikes! I have been working hard on my Aromatherapy class for the last 16 months and now I
really have to work.
I have been compiling case studies on each of the 33 oils we learned about, using them on friends, family and myself to get to know each oil's distinct and individual personality. I've been writing them up and printing them out for my final exam date on March 9th.
I also am finishing up my project, where people compared a deodorant I made with Cypress and True Lavender with their conventional deodorant. They filled out surveys each day after using both and after 5 days they passed it in. The project gave me greater respect for all the work that goes into research in the real world. The finding of subjects, the researching of the best formula, the finding of research to back that up, the obtaining of the products needed, the writing out of instructions and consents, the making of the actual product to be tested. Goodness me! Then finding everyone who volunteered and handing over the product, skin test vial and paperwork, then the collecting. I thought that was all the difficult part, but the compiling, separating and evaluating the data took a great deal of brain and computer work. Wow. Then I had to use Excel to make graphs and remember how to make footnotes in a paper that turned out to be 32 pages long.
It was a tremendous amount of work and I won't even tell you about how after I had written 80% of it and saved it, the entire paper disappeared into the abyss of my laptop's memory and I couldn't find it.
(This experience has really re-enforced that I will not go back to school unless I really really love the subject, like I do aromatherapy.)
Look at those pie charts! Pretty impressive, huh?
So staying up until 2am trying to find my paper while crying (I did find it, finally. I hit a button and it was suddenly there!) and trying to manage a sick child on the couch, all in between working most of the week, got me sick. Not a shock, really, but I was furious.
I don't look furious here, as I steam, but as the cold descended on me (a cold I had seen Rob suffer with all week) I was livid. I had just wanted sickness to hold off until after my three hour exam, but it did not.
I know you don't need to see this, but I need to vent.
Really?
What a nasty nasty cold!
Off I went to Boston at 5am in my car that was finally (hopefully) fixed in the tail end of a snowstorm. (If I hadn't been so overwhelmed by my class and family sickness so that I fell really far behind on my blog (hence the calm retrospective tone of this email as opposed to pissed off and weary) you would have been subjected to the saga of my 7 visit car-repair debacle where I got to know everyone at the dealer and had many loaner cars that smelled hideously of new car, but I took no photos and I don't think you want to hear about it. You are spared.))
The doors for the exam at Boston Medical Center locked at 9am and after that she could not let us in, even if we were only 2 minutes late, so of course I was worried.
I made it!
The car did not break down.
I got there early and I sat in my running car and studied.
I had studied like a madwoman for the last two weeks.
(Rob asked before we went to bed, "So when this exam is done; can we have you back?")
I held it together for the three hour exam, tissues in my sleeve. I was that annoying woman sneezing and blowing.
Then I presented my research project to my teacher and an outside evaluator.
Then I was done.
Glory Glory Halleluiah!
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