Finals season: an onslaught of assignments that you either could have started before now and didn’t, or were piled on one after the other because the professor didn’t budget time well enough. It is a time of stress eating, crying far too often, Googling pictures of baby animals, and phoning family to help get you through it. Around the time it starts we all begin to experience similar thoughts and actions. Here are just a few:
1) I would rather have to (insert horrible experience here) than to have to write this paper
Suddenly, you realize just how much work you have to do and are barely able to comprehend how miserable doing it all will be. So, you think of all the horrible experiences you’ve had and think how you would 100% go through all of those again in place of writing the three 5-7 page papers, the 10 page case study, the final group project, and the three final exams. Your life has a whole new perspective.
2) I emotionally and physically can’t complete all of this work
Suddenly, you realize how much work you really have and are stupefied because you firmly believe that this workload is impossible and you’ll have to have Incompletes for classes or take summer courses and you’re stressing out when you think…
3) Girl, get yourself in check. You are a freaking superwoman. You can totally do all this!
From nowhere you get this burst of self-assurance and believe in yourself and your ability. You acknowledge that so many people have done this before so it must be possible and you too can do it.
4) Just get it all done ahead of time, it’ll make the last couple of days so easy!
Oh we ALL think this at some point. Life would be so much easier if we were motivated all the time and actually did work ahead of time. How often does this actually happen? Maybe 5% of the times you tell yourself you’ll do it.
5) I think I’m just going to give myself the day off and relax, ya know, mental health!
This is classic. The amount of things you have to do becomes so huge in your mind that you just can’t do anything. So you call it a mental health break, so that you’ll be better able to do work later, and binge watch Netflix while eating snacks.
6) What have I done to myself, I could have done this all weeks ago!
Ahhh regret. We all knew this would happen. It’s that crazy college concept of time where you need time to slow down to do all the work, but you also want it to speed up so that you can be done with finals season.
7) Comparing your work load to the people around you
“Oh, Meg only has three 5-7 page papers and a group project? Please, I have four 5-7 page papers and a group project, and a case study.” Life suddenly becomes a game of who has it worse with everyone vying to be champion. Although why would we want to win that anyways?? College.
8) It’s 2 o’ clock in the morning and I can’t sleep because of all of the things I know I need to do and should have done but I know I also need sleep….
This is probably one of the worst experiences that NO ONE tells you about going to college: the Midnight Mania. Why is it that we couldn’t have this at like, say 2 o’clock in the afternoon when we can still do something about it!
And lastly, I hope it’s not just me, but other people as well, who get to the point of saying to themselves:
9) If only I was a dog.
The answer to everything.