By: Karen Huang
Many of my friends know how infatuated I am with Community. This fabulous NBC comedy focuses on a study group of seven misfits in a community college. Despite the setting, Community is the perfect escapist TV series during exam season, because this “study group” rarely ever studies.
Not so with McGill students. Only after arriving here did I realize that the word “library” actually signifies “communal study space.” Many students declare their favourite library their second home – because they have so much studying to get done.
As university students, we’re perpetually stuck in a cycle of stress: the rising action leading up to examination periods and assignment deadlines, the last minute scrambling for oh-god-what-was-that-concept-we-went-over-last-class-again, the bleary-eyed essay-writing sessions that feel worse than pulling teeth. On the flip side there are the post-exams denouements – the periods of relaxation that usually include (but are not limited to) excessive intakes of alcohol, celebratory movie outings and house parties. In fact, our semesters are primarily framed by the vacillation between stressful and unstressful periods, because that’s one of the most salient ways we have of measuring how time passes while we’re in school. “Study hard, party hard,” indeed.
After each semester, I strive to make a list of resolutions as to how I can improve my study habits for the next one. The first thing on these lists is – naturally – “stop procrastinating (as much).” More generally, I want to break out of the stress/unstress cycle, because while I’ve managed to survive so far, this continual process of pent-up pressure and subsequent hedonistic release has been incredibly draining on both mind and body. But of course, change is easier said than done. Even with the list of resolutions, every semester I find myself back in McLennan/Blackader/Cybertheque during crunch time, grinding away at all the work I have to do and kicking myself for not having started earlier.
So how do we break out of this vicious cycle? I wish I had a definite answer, but obviously, I’m as implicated in it as anyone else. But I do think that the reason that the stress/unstress cycle has us so tightly bound within its grips is because we think external circumstances – our exam schedules, for example – shape how adequately we can prepare for impending assessments. This is true, but only to an extent. We can’t change when our assignments are due, but we can change the way we regard them. We’re so caught up with looking toward (or dreading, as it were) the near future that we forget to stop for a minute and just let ourselves stay in the present. And consequently, we forget the importance of taking things as they come, one after another.
I’m a big fan of to-do lists. Ever since I started using them, I haven’t been able to imagine going back to life without them. But sometimes even looking at a to-do list induces anxiety, because you get hit with the oh-crap realization that those exams/papers/assignments are all looming on the hellish horizon. In fact, I just took a quick glance at my to-do list for today, and suddenly feel slightly nauseous. If I hide every item on my to-do list except the first, however, things suddenly don’t feel so scary anymore. To apply this more broadly to our incredibly overwhelming McGill semesters, all we have to do is get through it one day at a time. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll emerge at the other end of it unscathed, without feeling like we’ve just defeated the Big Bad in a fantasy novel or the final boss in a video game (your mileage may vary). Schoolwork doesn’t – and shouldn’t – have to be that hard to grapple with.
I think Amy Poehler said it far better than I ever will: “Stress is really hard to deal with, and it stays with you your whole life if you don’t find a way to breathe, and relax, and just take it bird by bird – just one thing at a time. Just figure out what you can do today, and go to bed knowing you’ve done everything you can.”
So, as the semester winds down, best of luck to all of us.
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