10 Stages of Drake Finals Week

It’s my final finals! And what an exciting time it is. Thank goodness I’ve learned so much over my years at Drake and have now managed my time so wisely that I’m just sailing along. Hahaha; just kidding. I’m a mess. In what has become a truly time-honored tradition, I am currently reaping the seeds of my expert level procrastination, cramming to write papers and finish projects at the very last minute possible. Is this the smart way to do things? Nope. But it’s who I am, and at this point it’s far too late to change the crazy thought patterns that enter my head. It’s now my pleasure to provide an insight into my finals week thoughts. As deadlines loom, I make decisions. Some productive, some questionable. Okay, they’re mostly all questionable, but here they are:

8 hours till deadline: Okay, unlike last semester, I’m gonna get this paper done early. But not right now, obviously. I have tons of time.

7 hours till deadline: I just need the perfect playlist, then some stuff is gonna get done.

6 hours till deadline: Okay, that playlist took longer than I intended. But I’m gonna get started and write the header on my paper. Ooh, actually, my apartment is kind of dirty. I can’t work in these conditions. Better take some time to clean.

5 hours till deadline: Whoops. Okay, definitely going to write now. For real. I mean, right after I get a snack.

4 hours till deadline: Okay, I now have two pages written. That’s an accomplishment. An accomplishment that deserves a quick break.

3 hours till deadline: Oh, boy. The good news is that I work better under pressure anyway. And the pressure is building. I’ll calm down by checking my phone for a minute, then, it’s time to get serious.

2 hours till deadline: Ohhhhh no. I really have to work

1 hours till deadline: AHHHHH!!!!

1 minute till deadline: TURN IT IN; IT”S FINE. IT’S DONE!!!

2 minutes after deadline: That was terrible. Did I even spell check that paper? You know what, it doesn’t matter. That was so traumatic, I better settle down and take a well-deserved break.

Sumertime Sadness

After classes ended for the year, I was admittedly burnt out. I’ve talked before about the horrors of finals season, and they came again full-force this semester. Come the last week of my junior year, I was tired, grouchy, and suffering from severe carpal tunnel syndrome after writing my copious amounts of papers. (This was not formally diagnosed, but I think I’ve seen enough Grey’s Anatomy to successfully detect pretty much any ailment).

Anyway, now that I’m home, I took a few days off. I slept, I ate things other than my finals diet of cookie dough and old jelly beans, and I began to slowly relax a little. These days, I’m feeling pretty good. I’m mentally and physically rested and able to look back on what was, in retrospect, a pretty great semester. Not only did I learn a lot in the classroom these past few months, but I grew a lot outside of it. As an almost senior, I can say I’m now older, wiser, and more comfortable than ever in my Drake home and in Des Moines.

With this period of rest and reflection under my belt, something strange began happening. I not only began to miss Drake, Des Moines, and all my friends, but I began to miss school itself. I miss my Habitat for Humanity meetings and chatting with my professors in Howard Hall. I miss my classes and getting to discuss with other students. I miss all my readings, and yes, I even miss my homework.

Maybe I’m a little crazy or maybe it’s a case of pre-summer nostalgia. But maybe, just maybe, I go to a really great school that deserves to be missed.

5 Stages of Finals

Sorry for the blog delay, folks! In a very meta-level manner, the posting gap actually exemplifies what I’d like to talk about: I got a little stressed. You see, last week, the horrifying, Tolkien-like creature known as finals visited Drake University.  Rising out of the fires of Mordor, finals attacked our once peaceful campus and ruined everyone’s life for a week. And, yeah, I’m being a smidge dramatic. But, as the saying goes, ‘tis the season for creating needless drama. Thus, I present my personal 5 stages of finals:

Denial

The weekend before finals, I was feeling pretty good. I walked past Cowles library, scoffing at the students already freaking out over their textbooks. Me, I don’t really take tests. I just had to write papers, and how hard could that be, really?

Anger

Turns out it was really hard. As the week progressed, the list of tasks began to pile up and I began to resent the caliber of my liberal arts education. If only I hadn’t learned so much over the course of the semester there’d be nothing for me to write about!

Bargaining

But the fact remained I needed to get things done. Thus, I bought some chocolate. Okay, I bought a lot of chocolate. I also created a foolproof plan whereby for every page I wrote, I would get to eat a chocolate. One bag of chocolates and a lot of blank pages later, I still needed to get to work.

Depression

I guess the chocolate and lack of sleep backfired just a smidge. Lying on the couch at 2 a.m., my copious notes and blank word doc in front of me, the task seemed impossible. I simply would not survive finals week. With half of a Drake education, I would just have to make my way into the world and do what I was good at: eating chocolate and complaining.

Acceptance

Thursday of finals week was my glory day, my underdog returns to claim the championship moment. And, okay, I won’t be winning any championships for the writing I did on that day, but I did get all my papers done. With no more time left to delay, I settled in and wrote until I was done. And let me tell you, after all the (mostly self-imposed) horrors of the week, it felt really good to be done. I was proud of the work I had done and all that I had learned. And maybe we can all just forget that that level of achievement took two bags of chocolates.