The Demise of 'Double-U'

Dear Family,

These last two weeks have been quite inimitable, and tonight I experience, to an equal degree, the strangely compatible sensations of exultation and exhaustion.
An ordinary day, for me, consists of several hours of study after class. As the day of the finals approached, my study hours lengthened, until over this last week, it has been a regular thing for me to be immersed in Korean from nine in the morning to nine in the evening. Often, I would rub my burning eyes, and sit back to rest my neck and shoulders, pushing myself on with the thought: "Only a few more days, Lis. Just work at it for a few more days. You can rest then. Not yet. Not yet." Then I would bend again over my books until my mind ached. There is so much to learn and know, and my mind feels so very numb, sometimes.
Wednesday morning finally arrived, and I made it through the grammar & vocabulary, listening, and reading tests, without too much ado. The rest of the afternoon was devoted to studying for the morrow's interview, which was the only part of the whole ordeal that I was seriously worried about and dreading. When Thursday morning dawned, I got on my knees and told God that I didn't think I would be able do it. "But we both know why I'm here," I reminded Him, "So let's have a go at this together."
The twenty-minute interview over, I bowed to the teacher, and left the room, quietly closing the door behind me. At the gentle sound of the clicking latch, a hammering pulse abruptly began to pound behind my eyes, and I took myself home to rest. But, rather than subsiding, the headache worsened, and I finally gave in, before heading to school this morning, and took an aspirin.
I held my breath as my score card was passed to me, with a smile and a nod. Unfolding it, my eyes eagerly scanned the page, and I slowly exhaled when they spotted what they had hoped, but hardly expected, to find. While my classmates were all smiling, laughing and congratulating each other, I sat quietly, folded my paper without reading the note that my teacher had written at the bottom, and slipped it back into its envelope. And the sharp pain in my temples and behind my right eye, began instantly and mercifully to subside.
So I have officially passed Korean, level one.

I recently added some new fish to my tank, which, as it turned out, had a vicious streak, and began taking their issues out on my very gentle gold fish. I quickly grew weary of snapping on the tank to settle their disputes, but was loathe to leave 'Double-U' to his fate. So for a short while he lead an isolated, cramped existence in a mason jar. The solitary confinement apparently didn't suit his constitution, however, because he instantly went into a steady decline, growing languid and droopy, until one day he simply was no more. Due to a flash of rare and brilliant foresight, I had magnanimously bestowed my handsome, bright orange fishy, with his black fins and tail, on the unsuspecting Wilkes, a day before his untimely demise, and so, having subjected myself to the more immediate pain of separation, was spared the greater pain of disposing of the body. I now look with an choleric eye upon my remaining fish, especially Sorbet, whose color reminds me exactly of that desert, only perhaps rather less deliciously. He has little idea of how very often he falls under my the wrath of my righteous indignation, nor how very close he has come, on more than one occasion, to meeting his Maker. He may count himself fortunate that I haven't yet been able to bring myself to retaliate quite so vengefully, but toy, rather, with the idea of foisting…ahem!…with the idea of bestowing him upon my very good friends, as a consolation, of course, for their recent loss.

I must be off,
Elisabeth