The Fine Art Of Surviving Finals Week

You have an overwhelming feeling of anxiety, mixed with fatigue, mixed with exhaustion. You’re torn between two urges — you want the end of the week to come as quickly as possible, yet half of you wishes it would never come. You feel lost in a land where you’re no longer yourself, as you have absolutely no idea whether it’s the never ending headache, being sleep and food deprived, or the abundant amount of information inside your head that’s making you feel this way. It feels like a huge burden has been placed on your chest, and you know it’ll remain with you until for the forseeable future.

I start making new best friends at this time of the year; coffee becomes my inseparable buddy. As for my bed, my long missed best friend, visiting it becomes a luxury that I can no longer afford. If I am lucky enough to visit it for a couple of hours, leaving it makes me wish that I never did in the first place, so that I don’t have to go through that pain of separation. I start building my own tent in the library. I open my blackboard account and start downloading slides, pairing them with the textbook’s corresponding chapter. Realizing there is an overwhelming amount of information, I always decide to highlight the important elements in the book — which usually turns into highlighting the whole paragraph except for the words “and” and “the.” Yet, this process makes it easier to concentrate, And somehow it makes me feel that I have studied less than what I would have studied otherwise.

My friend’s survival phase is usually more dramatic than mine. She always ends up being the lucky one, with days off between her exams, and still somehow starts her vacation earlier. Her dilemma is usually in regards to how she’s going to celebrate the end of her exams week. When the rest of us are gathered in front of the computer trying to prepare our impending presentations, she’s fully absorbed in a hot new iPhone game — an outlier to the general mood of tension and doom. We hope she stays absorbed, as boredom will likely bring her attention to us — nagging us to take a break, claiming that we shouldn’t take life too seriously.

Surviving finals’ week is an art primarily based on the final painting you desire. Some will have a hectic week full of stressful nights and working days, others will be able to enjoy that week and live their life normally. There is no right way to survive the week, as long you endure the results of your survival plan.