Wow, I can’t believe I’m writing my final blog post of the semester. I’m really having trouble fathoming that I am 1/2 of the way through my sophomore year already. How did this happen!? It honestly feels like a month ago that I came here for orientation committee. I still remember completely my first day of classes, my first trip to the village, and my first meal of the year. I thought that last year went fast, but this semester flew by five times faster. I’m really scared that the rest of my college career will follow this pattern and before I know it I’ll be graduating and being dumped into the real world. But enough of that. It’s time for me to focus on finishing out the semester strong, regardless of whether I believe it is really the end or not.
I have three finals and one take home final. Yesterday (Friday) I finished my take home final, a series of short essays, two days earlier than expected. It was a great relief to be able to turn in that final so that I could focus on studying for my other three. I think I took the relief too far though because I didn’t have any sort of mental capacity to study last night.
Which brings me to today. Sitting at brunch this morning I suddenly had that realization that I had been waiting for. This was the “oh my gosh I have three finals in the span of two days in about 72 hours, I have so much to study, they are all cumulative!” realization…actually this may qualify as a freak-out. Two of my finals are on the same day which makes studying a very precarious situation that has to be well calculated. If I study too much for one, I may not have enough time to study for the other one. But I also can’t forget the final I have a day later, because I know after my two finals I am not going to be in the right mindset to study hard.
This balancing act is something that always stressed me out about finals. It’s not that I’m nervous about the tests themselves (well ok maybe I am), but I’m mainly nervous I’m not going to be able to finish everything in time. It’s the great irony of the school year. The rest of the year we just want break to come so we can finally breathe, but during finals week we just want time to stand still.
But I’ve been telling myself that time will continue, and no matter what, I will be officially on break in 6 days. Whatever happens in the next 5 days, how little sleep I get, how stressed out I am, how many meals I have to eat in front of my laptop, in 6 days I will be at home for a month-long breath of fresh air.