the best deceptions

The past 8 days were absolutely amazing. Cairns is an amazing city. The Daintree rainforest, Port Douglas, Cape Tribulation...all breathtaking just like I had expected. But nothing on this planet can compare to the reef. Or scuba diving. Learning to dive was so much fun even with all of the classroom time and 4-hour pool sessions. I, surprise surprise, met some really amazing people. My dive buddy and I, an Irish guy named Darragh, became fast friends. I guess that's what happens when you are so quickly put in a position where you are responsible for another person's life! Our instructors were AMAZING and made everything so much fun. The boat was really nice too and even though there were about 40 of us on the boat we all got to know a lot about each other just by sitting with different people all of the time at meals and discussing dives.
The Great Barrier Reef...I could go on for days. I saw hundreds of different species of fish and corals and was able to either identify them on the spot (I attended this "reef teach" class the night before we left on the boat) or later using one of the books or charts on the boat. I swam along side blue-spotted lagoon rays and this beautiful green turtle who was at least twice my age. I saw giant clams that were at least 1 meter long, a white-tip reef shark (on my night dive), a mackerel shark, and swam right next to many Maori Wrasse (fish that probably weigh more than I do and are incredibly friendly). All we did for the 3 days was dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, eat, dive each day. It was amazing and I'm still incredibly exhausted. I loved it so much that I ended up doing more instruction and furthering my certification to adventure diver which means I can dive to 30 meters, anywhere in the world, anytime for the rest of my life. Plus I did my technical training in underwater photography! After we got back to land on friday in the late afternoon I checked in at my hostel and talked with my new roommates. Then I went to the restaurant where all of the staff and everyone else on our trip met for dinner and drinks. Later we all, well at least the younger crowd+ the staff, went to a bar/club where we were all let in like VIPs because our instructors know the bouncers really well. It was a great time but I got home really late and therefore only got a few hours of sleep before I got up to check out of my hostel.
Anyway, I'm really sad that it's over because the whole trip was such a high. And now I'm trying to concentrate on my 4 finals that begin in just 2 days which I haven't really started studying for. It's not working at all and I feel no pressure at all which is terrible. All I can think about is how I have to leave this amazing country soon and spend (at least) a full year not traveling. I love it here and I don't like the idea of living anywhere that's not here...
On top of this distraction I think I'm getting sick, or I should say sicker really because I've already been kind of sick all day today. It's probably stems from the 6 days that I pushed myself to full exhaustion every day...Basically studying has been close to nonexistent today and that's bad, right?