Saturday, May 17, 2008
The One Week Where It's Totally Normal to Meet Young Frankenstein Look-alikes at Three in the Morning
[This was actually written last week, but due to the interventions of exams, coming home, and my laptop not working, I didn't get a chance to post it until now.]It’s common knowledge that finals week is hell-week for college students. It’s also hell-week for the heart and lungs, given that we all tend to charge our system with massive amounts of caffeine and nicotine in an effort to de-stress. Neither of which, as my friend, Jake, would point out, actually help with anxiety, since they’re both stimulants. Then again, he also thinks that alcohol is a stimulant, and is willing to argue the point for hours at one o’clock in the morning while everyone else is desperately trying to study lab because we’re all fucked and would you shut up, Jake, please? Let’s just say Jake is not the most focused person around.
Anyway, despite all the panic-attacks, I find myself loving finals week. It’s hell, but at the same time, it’s kinda fun. When else do you get to stay up all night
having nervous breakdowns with your friends? Case in point: At two-thirty in the morning, Monday night, I looked around the commons and took in the spectacle. One guy was standing on top of a table, strumming a guitar and singing nonsense, another guy was blatantly smoking indoors (in California, no less, the land where smokers are pariahs), and the rest were studying as if their lives depended on it. Which, if we want to stay at this college, they do. If you fail one class here, you fail out completely. That accounts for a great deal of the aforementioned stress.
The point is, though, that you never get that kind of experience, much less that kind of bonding, outside of finals week. We’re all screwed together, so we bum out cigarettes and make each other coffee like there’s no tomorrow. And if you want to cry on someone’s shoulder, go right ahead. You can run outside and let off steam during the Midnight Scream (or any other time, really, but that’s when you can be sure of company). You're free to wander around, muttering things about syllogistic figures or harmonious equipotential systems, which would ordinarily earn you a trip to the psychiatrist, but tonight everyone understands. In fact, they're doing the same thing. Finally, once your brain ceases to process any form of logical thought, you can grab a couch anywhere and sleep for a few hours, if you don’t mind being hideously uncomfortable when you wake up. Which you don’t. It’s finals week, of course.
Then there’s the actual final. Obviously, it sucks, but the adrenaline-rush beforehand is sort of fun, in a masochistic way. Then there’s the beautiful, simultaneous feelings of accomplishment, writer’s cramp, and adrenaline let-down as you walk out, knowing that one exam, at least, is over and you never have to do it again. Unless, of course, you fail, but we don’t think such thoughts. Not if we want to stay sane, we don’t. Those thoughts are for the night before, when you’re melting down, but there’s still conceivably something you could do about it. After the fact, it’s over and done with. No need to dwell on it. You’re probably too busy worrying about the next exam, anyway.
And then there’s the silver lining to keep your mind on: The end of the week, when you can at last throw your pencil down and go have that drink, or drinks, that you’ve been looking forward to all the dry, studious week long. I also have a mad frenzy of packing to do this weekend, but that’s not a silver lining, that’s just depressing. So I’m just focusing on the party aspect this weekend.
Once that’s over, then the glorious summer begins, and you can finally go home and see all your friends for the first time in four months. Then the frantic search for a summer job begins!
To quote the infinite wisdom of Calvin and Hobbes: “The days are just packed.”
Spudge at 6:43 PM
1 Comments
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at November 11, 2008 10:49 AM
Pilar said... People should read this.