The Final Final

Blog readers, here is my thought for the day, "Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong."
This is what I was thinking all morning as I finished my final final for my first semester in Graduate School.
It was all essay. And it required every bit of the two hours I was allotted.
For the first essay question, I had to write a memo to (presumed) President Hillary Clinton about the problems of the World Bank, how I as the World Bank president would fix some of the problems, etc., and how I would work to assuage shareholders, NGOs and poor countries.
For another question, I had to describe comparative advantage using the Heksher Olin model of endowments and describe a situation in which two countries would trade goods under the model over a given period of time.
For another essay question, I had to describe the current round of trade negotiations under the WTO (called the Doha round), why it’s in a deadlock and then trace the entire history of the rounds of trade, what the current issues are, and how we can overcome these problems and what is my view of the future of trade.
Then, for the last essay question, I had to describe in detail components of the last book we read (Lant Pritchett's `Let Their People Come') describe how rich countries’ demographics are generally against open borders and immigration, and then synthesize all of that into one strong essay where I had to thread the concept of “ghosts” and “zombies” as described by the book’s author throughout the theme of that essay.
Really, I'm just laying it all out here to get it off my chest. It was a lot of writing.
Am I celebrating? Of course. I am happy, elated, to be finished with this semester's studies. I did not, however, follow the advice of one of my student workers: If you don't know the answer, just draw the finger.
You all know what finger I am talking about.
But the professor did manage to pull out some tricks where I was completely dumbfounded at the questions. This is where being a non-traditional student with a career life behind me comes in handy. I used to get physically sick in undergraduate at the thought of essay exams. I would at least manage to give myself an anxiety attack. It's all about perspective. I said, "What's done is done. I did the best I could."
No summer classes for me. I've got to catch up on some sleep.
Thank all of you for the love and support I needed to get through this semester, because it wasn't easy.