Final exams are crazy. I've written 80 pages in six days. I've written a 20-page paper and then immediately scrapped it and started over because I knew it wasn't any good. I've had at least one season of final exams where I had very little to do and ended up watching three entire seasons of America's Next Top Model on YouTube so that I could stay awake and keep Daryl company as he slaved away (sigh... I know, I know). I've gone back and forth between studies of Bonhoeffer, Alzheimer's disease, Ephesians, and Brecht in the same 24-hour period. I've somehow (somehow!) managed to stay sane thanks to Jesus, Daryl, and lots of caffeine (in that order).
Finals make for great memories because they are ridiculous. All of us students do the impossible, surprise ourselves, drive ourselves nutty, and sometimes even learn something along the way.
This finals season I had 70+ pages to write in a week. It would have been 70+ pages to write in two weeks, but I had to fly to Nashville for an interview (yay!). My good friend Katie (who had six pages to write - I tried very hard not to hate her for this reason...) came over to work most nights. It was great to have someone around, to take short breaks, to eat bowls of cereal together.
I'll miss the ridiculous things that happen during finals week - things that, if it were not finals week, would make us all seem pathological, neurotic, or just plain bizarre.
I have one friend who wears the same clothes every day until she finishes a paper. It helps her feel like it's just one long day and not days and days of her life she's devoting to the paper.
Daryl chooses a place to work and will work only there for four or five or six days, and then changes abruptly and cannot stand working there anymore. This season it was Panera every day, and now he can't stand to go back and has found a new spot.
When I was a student at Loyola I instituted the "butt-in-the-chair" policy. After managing to procrastinate with everything under the sun (I should match up those pairless socks! I should clean behind the fridge! I should Christmas shop in May!) I sat myself in a chair in front of my computer and would let myself up for only three things: bathroom, 3 daily meals, and bedtime. Of course, I now know that this is how people get blood clots and die. But at the time, it worked wonders for my grades.
Now I do puzzles during finals. Puzzle after puzzle. I'll work for an hour or two, then spend fifteen minutes on a puzzle. It helps my mind to relax while I can still mull over my paper. I probably did ten puzzles during finals week this year. Doing them puts me into that same relaxed state-of-mind that happens in the shower or before sleep. It helps me come up with great ideas and realize which old ones don't work with the argument of my paper. Daryl's dad has a great explanation for the different type of brainwaves that we have and what this type of thought is called, but I don't remember what it is right now... that's what happens after finals!
As a student, finals is like the Olympics. Have you prepared well? Will you choke? Will you fall apart at the seams? How is your equipment? Will your computer die? Will that big jug of Mountain Dew help or hurt? How much sleep does a human being actually need?
When I was in undergrad a friend and I went to this ridiculous all-night diner on the way to Chicago and drank bad smoothies and wrote and wrote and wrote. When I studied at Loyola I wrote papers with Eliot, my new kitten, in a room overlooking Addison Street and Wrigley Field. I ate handfuls of Oreos and Thai takeout. I hardly slept. I read thousands of pages.
Perhaps the best part about final exams is that they end. Then all students go to sleep. The first restful sleep in weeks - nothing is due, nothing is late, nothing else can go wrong. It is done. We sleep and sleep.
The first thing I always do after that sleep is go to the grocery store and take my time choosing each item. I eat terribly during finals, and my brain is so full and strained it almost feels bruised, so it's a joy to focus on something as simple as food. The week after finals I indulge myself. I get the good mozzarella, the pricey-but-amazing orange juice. I read labels and squeeze melons. I meander through the store knowing that, after a grueling week or two and a long semester, I have nothing else to do. I begin the slow stepping-down off of too much caffeine.
I was a little sad to turn in my final final paper this year. For all I know, I'm done being a student. This could be my last paper... ever. I'll miss the craziness of finals, the Herculean effort it takes to get up early and stay up late for days on end while expending crazy amounts of brain energy. I'll miss the accomplishment of finally emailing off a paper, or watching it print. I'll miss the sense of accomplishment. I'll miss the camaraderie that occurs when every student is in the same boat, struggling to stay afloat on a sea of papers and exams. The student life is a good one indeed - even during finals.
Image borrowed from here.
