"It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out – it's the grain of sand in your shoe." Robert Service

Can I just say at this particular moment that I can relate quite nicely to this quote? I am experiencing the grain of sand in my shoe.

So there's the mountain. The fact that to even get a C on one itty bitty exam, I have to study too many hours to count. The labs. The calculations. The reading, and comprehending it. Getting my butt out of bed after going to bed at 2 AM every night because I had to stay up so late working. And then scoring at least 20% better on my exams than the class average.

So, I climbed the mountain. It wasn't easy, but it was...you know. I did it. It was within my ability. Everything was fine. I am very close to dead from studying for my physics exam, but...it was going. But then what happened?

I forgot my goggles for chem lab. How stupid! I have been fabulous about studying relentlessly, working so hard, managing my time...improving my time management skills is a huge hurdle for me that I'm working on and succeeding, at least by my current standards, in improving. I am not done improving, but anyway...it's me climbing a mountain.

And then the damn grain of sand. How simple is it to pick up my goggles off of my desk and put them in my backpack? Or just carry them by the strap so I don't have to bother with unzipping and zipping my backpack a couple more times? Not that hard. Compared to the moutnain I've been climbing, it's a simple task. But it's the grain of sand...wearing me out.

I spent half of the chem class period running back to the Theta house to get my goggles--and I was extremely lucky to have been given this opportunity out of the pure generosity of my lab TA. I was finally able to get back and start the lab, and worked way till after everyone left to try to finish it. I hope my data is actually accurate since I did kind of rush through it--I had to!

Anyway, now that I've gone through this huge amount of stress because zeros in lab are very ugly (they drop your final grade an entire grade level, so it would make it impossible for me to get an A) I have very little energy left to go through the stress I need to go through for my physics test. But I'm gonna keep trying!

I need to get rid of the grains of sand.