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It’s finals week of fall semester…meaning you are seconds away from Christmas and your bed at home, but you still have to finish your term paper you had 14 weeks to work on and there are never enough hours in the day to do everything you need to…how can something be so close yet so far away?
Your alarm goes off at 7 am on Monday…your first final is in three hours. Time to cram! Off to the library you go. Upon arriving, you get in line to buy a coffee…but you remember you have twenty cents in your checking account. oops.
Three hours goes by in a flash, and before you know it, you’re in the classroom, ready to take the test.
Here we go…you get the exam, and read the first question. What does it even mean? Was this really taught in class? Was that one lecture you missed because your nap accidentally went way too long the only thing covered on this test? Crapsh*tgoddammit.
Okay, it’s fine. Next question…oh hell yeah! Who knows the answer? This girl!
You’re crushing it. After an hour or two, you are done with the final, and sashay out of class. Peace and blessin’s.
You’re going to take a celebratory nap, or eat a bunch of celebratory ice cream. Even though it’s 11 AM. Whatever.
You’re done eating, napping, showering, shoving ice cream in your face, etc, and feel super refreshed! Three more finals to go…and that dang term paper…the feelings of damnation return. Such is life during finals week.
After a minor breakdown, you decide to get your priorities in order. You go to that question-answer session your professor talked about last week. This will totally help! You get there, and your professor basically just makes everyone there do all the work and doesn’t help at all. Your loving heart is filled with rage.
If you could shoot laser beams out of your eyeballs at any time of your life, NOW WOULD BE IDEAL. Ugh.
It’s cool. You aren’t bitter at all. You get out of that useless study session and go back to the library, where you finally make some real progress on your paper! You’re feeling pretty good. Somehow, though, you have to get 2,000 more words out…But you’ll definitely have it done by the day it’s due, and now you have time to study for your next final which happens tomorrow. And while you’ve never understood the purpose of word counts, you don’t mind writing this essay because you love the class and the professor, and your essay topic is yoga pants. So you’re basically the single most qualified person to write on the subject, thanks Consumer Behavior!
You check your grade, just real quick. You are at an 89.9% and your teacher is using the plus-minus grading system. Great. This final just became your sole focus of your life over the next 24 hours.
You overhear some freshmen complaining about their superhard acting final….
…and decide they are adorable. Once, you were an adorable freshman too. You used to tell yourself you’d never be a soulless, jaded senior…
And you know deep down, you’re not. This week, though, you are really riding the struggle bus. Getting your sh*t together comes at a high price…lots of sleep, and parts of your soul. The night arrives, you stay up until the wee hours, and wish you were home with your dog for 95% of it.
At 2 AM you eat mac n’ cheese and feel really fulfilled, and very, very tired. But there is no better feeling of walking into your next final the next day, knowing you are going to kill it. Seriously, somehow, you knew every answer. No big deal. You’re just super smart.
Two down, two to go! You have about 200 PowerPoint slides to go over for your next test tomorrow. Yayyy…back to Coe you go!
About halfway through studying your slides, you realize you haven’t eaten in awhile, and since you’re at the library (maybe you should just move in?) you call Jimmy John’s. Five minutes later you go to get it, and run into one of your friends from class! She too, is studying the PowerPoints…except she tells you, once you start talking about the material, that you’ve been studying the wrong stuff.
At this point, all you can do is laugh. You enjoy the sh*t out of your beach club (that avocado, though), and as you dig into your cookie you start to have a minor panic attack. You just wasted how long studying stuff from September for your non-cumulative final?!
Okay, okay, this sucks but it’s not the end of the world. You’re okay!! And by okay, I mean you’re just too tired to really be upset about this.
A couple hours later, after switching between your paper and studying, you get a call from your roommate. She’s done with her finals and bought a celebratory bottle of wine, did you want a glass? Ummm…frick yeah!
But, your final is at 8 AM tomorrow and you really can’t mess it up. One glass, you tell yourself. To fall asleep. Somehow, several hours and several glasses later, you realize you only have a matter of hours before your final. You thought some wine was a good idea, only to realize now, you were very, very wrong.
Alcohol is not cool, you scream to yourself as you sob in the shower. Ugh…whatever, a quick nap is all you need to feel as good as new. And sleep you do! Probably the hardest you’ve ever slept, to be honest, and that morning you zombie to the Book and Bean to grab a coffee before your exam. You’re sitting in the classroom, doing some last-minute prep, and you realize you know almost everything you could possibly need to, it’s just coming really slowly.
You get the test, and you’re chugging along, feeling pretty good, when you come to the essay question. You blank for a second. Literally, nothing.
And after a while of staring around and frantically sipping your coffee, you end up writing a killer essay, and boom, you’re outta there. Your next final is in an hour, but you know it will be super easy, and you just run through some flashcards over a bagel (brain food!!). You’re in and then you’re out, free to finish that paper! Hallelujah!
You’re almost there…and finally, hours and hours later, you’re done. After proofreading, you hit print, and you are free! You did it! Finals week fall 2015 is officially over, a feeling that makes the struggles of the week almost worth it.