You know the drill. The first week of classes you vow to wake up every morning an hour before class, straighten your hair and pick out an outfit that reads ready to learn/take on the world/I’m a nice person so please give me an A.
But by the time final papers and tests roll around? You’re lucky if you’re not wearing mismatched flip flops, not to mention the fact that the messy bun has officially become your go-to style. Here’s my breakdown of the jump between your fresh-off-winter-break style versus your how-many-days-till-summer meltdown look to make us all feel a little bit better about wandering around campus looking like we just rolled out of bed:
THE HAIR: By mid-April your straightening iron has officially gone into early retirement. You could care less if you have a huge presentation and your weather app is forecasting 100% humidity, there’s no way you’re sacrificing that extra hour of sleep to wrestle with tangles and frizz.
THE FOOTWEAR: Remember those super cute sandals you bought on clearance even though you totally knew they’d give you the blisters from hell? They’ve been forever banished to the back of your closet in favor of the trusty rotation of rain boots, work out sneakers and perfectly broken in flip flops (which may or may not match depending on the current organizational state of your room).
THE CLOTHES: Hint: if you see me in a sundress you know it’s only because it’s laundry day and I’ve run out of reasonably clean Nike shorts. Because while the start of the semester may have been filled with perfectly put together outfits, at this point you just deserve some recognition for not wearing pajamas to class.
THE BACKPACK: I commend you if your class notes are still as perfectly color coordinated as they were at the beginning of the semester. For the rest of us normal humans, our perfectly organized and stylish backpack has become a receptacle for approximately 8 million pages of reading, a bottle of Advil and the emergency library snacks we’re going to need to get through finals.