Study Break....of sorts

Having turned in my final term paper as a graduate student yesterday, I'm now finally in a position to take a bit of a break from actual university work and enjoy reading "for fun." Of course, the book that I'm presently reading, Fukuyama's latest--America at the Crossroads--is more likely than not going to be included my lit review for the thesis, so it's not really a full break. It is definitely nice to no longer have to worry about deadlines or going down to the bomb shelter for my Canadian Politics seminar, and I will certainly enjoy the liberty of being able to read what I want to read, for me, rather than what I have to read, for class participation marks.
This past semester was a bit of a wierd one, and I found myself not enjoying myself to the fullest extent.
In IR I was a fish out of water for a good chunk of the term, as my IPE knowledge is rather limited to what I learned in a second-year class that I took many years ago. The final paper turned out all right (I hope) as I made the best with what I did know and had some fun exploring the idea of intellectual property rights, something which I think is going to become a major political issue in this century and a topic area I may be inclined to study further in the future.
Canadian Politics was often frustrating because the focus of the course was far too heavily determined by what the professor wanted to talk about. I'm not meaning that as a knock on the prof or her study of interest, but a graduate seminar should have much greater student-led direction and be a lot less rigid in its format. We had a federal election in mid-January that received very little discussion in spite of what effects its result will have on federal-provincial relations in the coming months, despite the efforts of myself and several others to shift away from the theoretical aspects of asymmetrical federalism and its related topics. Also, I found that there was far too much focus on Toronto; I don't like the city at the best of times, and the emphasis on it instead of other major cities in the urban regime literature bordered on aggravating. And that bomb shelter was just bad for creating an environment to discuss things; I need at least some natural light to have a hope of being in a good mood!
American foreign policy was, to no surprise, the highlight of this semester for me. I enjoyed expressing myself in that class, probably scaring some folks with the occasional neo-con rant, but it was a good way to spend a couple hours on a late Friday afternoon. The professor was great, he let us have largely free rein to discuss what we wanted to discuss, and I enjoyed learning from the other students and hearing a wide range of opinions. The two policy-paper seminars were the most enjoyable 4 hours of class time I had this semester, because we, the students, ran the show and I'd say we did a fine job of discussing the major issues in American foreign policy and Canada-US relations. That was good stuff.
With a full eight days off until the first-year class that I am a TA for has its scheduled exam, it's going to be a good time for some reflection and looking ahead. Reading at my own pace without having disruptions for doing class work and all that goes with it is going to be high on the agenda, as will enjoying the Halifax springtime with Anna Lou. It's a nice way to recharge the batteries until I dive head-first into writing the thesis over the course of May and June (if not sooner should I feel so inclined), so hopefully that final product will be my very best writing and something I can be proud of to call my own. It's a comparative on American foreign policy under the presidencies of Truman and Bush, so I know that it will be a pleasure to write.