School's out for Summer....okay well winter actually, but no one wrote a song about winter.

Assignments delivered. Exams attended and hopefully completed with success. Old books put away and new ones taken their place, primed for the next semester along with a new timetable, it's colour coding matching the dividers in the pristine notebook sitting on my shelf. It's newness indicative of the new slate that the beginning of new units brings. The semester 1 information that I had fought so bravely to contain within my grey matter, begins slowly to leak out, leaving only remnants of that information, deemed important to remember for future reference. With one semester finished and seemingly never ending weeks till the new one begins, one begins to consider options for the "Hooray, I have finished my exams and have an awfully long time till I have to pick up another book that is not related to either Elves or Wizards and contort my brain into remembering things that it really wishes to forget, all the while creating plenteous excuses not to study" celebration. Some call it simply the "End of Semester" celebration, but I believe the former is a far more vivid and lively description.

Celebrations surrounded me, like geeks surrounding the newest release of World of Warcraft. Logging onto Facebook I saw multitudes of students preparing for the post semester wind up. Parties to the left and trips to Northbridge to the right. If I so desired I could have visited all the great party spots of Perth in, what was described on one event's pages, "the most awesome 10 hours of your life." As I didn't desire anything of the sort I began to consider what I could do in 10 hours that would blow these parties out of the water. It was easy. It was a given. There was no choice really. If anyone has a spare 10 hours and reason to celebrate, I could recommend only one thing. One thing to delight. To maximise those 10 hours in the most worthwhile way possible.

My post exam celebration was to be a Lord of the Rings Marathon. Who needs parties, loud music and alcohol when you could have 10 blissful hours crammed with Gandalf, Aragorn, several Hobbits and a convoluted story about the one ring to rule them all, one to to find them, one ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them? I say no one. Lord of the Rings provides you with all the sustenance one needs for a post exam repose. It's full of iron, protein, Vitamin B12 and zinc, and so much more that it could be mistaken for Centrum. The only thing it's missing is artificial colourings and flavourings, saturated fat and a shitload of sugar, so being the responsible adult I am, I went shopping to ensure all my nutritional needs would be met......


With a belly full of Pineapple Hunks (okay I am sure they used to be called Chunks, not Hunks), and visions of far away lands enveloping me, creating warmth like a great pair of ugg boots, the next 10 hours of sheer delight were like a pat on the back for all the hard work I had put in over the previous 14 weeks, emptying my mind just enough to allow some room for next semester.

Frodo: "I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened."
Gandalf: "So do all who live to see such times but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."