First Week of College

Well, I've survived my first finals week in college. I happen to think it's a pretty major accomplishment, which warrants a good deal of laziness for the next month or so, but certain higher powers happen to disagree.

It was a grueling, stressful stretch, but as I found out this morning, worth it. Despite the trial it posed, I'm happy I made it. Don't take that to mean I enjoyed it. I'm going to need all 5 months to recover until finals start again. You see, as long as a college semester is, at the end, there seems to be no time. Which is ironic, considering that now I have all the time in the world.

My first finals week started like this, I was worried.

A mind-blowing development, I know. I had this lame College 100 course, required for all freshmen, which was supposed to be helpful for me to get oriented, but it turned out just to be an excuse for my professor to tell his life story for an hour every Monday morning. This would have been fine in a boring, mind-numbing sort of way, except for the fact that there was a final project that was over things we hadn't covered in class. So, after I had a week-long freakout,  I scurried around last week, trying desperately to get this project finished before class on Monday, while studying simultaneously for my hardest final, Music Theory which happened to be on the same morning.

Well, as it turns out, after I was just about to finish this project (late on Saturday night,) I got an email from my professor saying that the due-date was being pushed back by a week and we were going to spend Monday gathering the parts of my project I had already acquired. This was technically good news, but mostly, it irritated me, because I had spent a lot of time and effort on the thing, which deprived me of time I needed to study for my scary chord test. After I'd managed to survive my written Music Theory final by the skin of my chinny-chin-chin, I made the same mistake Bilbo did at the end of the new Hobbit movie. (this doesn't count as a spoiler, by the way) I said to myself, I do believe the worst is behind me. That's really asking for it, isn't it?

Next up, I had the monumental task of preparing for my Algebra final, which for whatever reason was the final I was worried the least about. Probably because I had an eight hour car ride to a funeral and back to study for it, but that's beside the point. Algebra is still a bother, so much to remember and so many mistakes that can throw everything off. Despite this, it's hypnotic and follows the same patterns. So it was okay. I guess.

Oddly enough, once my tests had actually started, my stress seemed to dissipate, as my mind went into seek-and-destroy mode, or I guess it would be sit-and-recall-the-stuff-that-you've-been-cramming-into-your-noggin-for-the-past-two-weeks mode. Either way, the solace of actually doing what you've been dreading doing is quite powerful. Kinda like that old moniker about getting your feet wet that I don't actually know so I'll just paraphrase. You get the idea.

Then there was my online Music Appreciation final, five hours and one snack break later, I was down to two final finals. Ear Training in music is great, except when you're being tested on it. My skin was absolutely crawling as it started, because despite the fact I've been playing guitar for seven years, and despite the fact I'm sort of an aspiring music theory nerd, I have a pretty awful ear. Go on, try figuring that one out. My professor gave us cookies before this one, so that's probably why I didn't bomb it. To any prospective college students out there, never underestimate the power of sugar.

Then there was one, the College 100 final that had been postponed. Now, you may be figuring, hey, he already did all the work before, right? what's there to be worried about? Logic would agree with you, however, logic doesn't always agree with me, so naturally I found a way to make a final for a 1 credit hour class extremely stressful. It's not entirely my fault, this final was like the only actual graded assignment we'd had all semester, so I was sort of motivated to make it good. After all, it was the only thing he would have to base my grade on. No pressure. And I just had to make elaborately colorful pages and tables to print for it.

Anyway, once I got all the work done, things appeared to be coming to a rest. I got up on Monday morning, early enough (or so I believed) to go print my project off at campus, because it's free that way. This, of course, inevitably led to me wandering around campus for an hour trying to find a color printer.

I started in the library, figured out the printers there didn't do color. I got up to ask the lady at the desk where a suitable printer was, not realizing I left my prescription sunglasses on the desk. She sent me to the Business and Technology building, which doesn't exist, so I assumed she meant the Business building. I walked there, couldn't find the lab. Decided she must have meant the Science and Technology building, and walked there. I couldn't have picked a worse morning to wear my stupid flip flops. Once I made it there, the attendant proceeded to have me sign in, only to then tell me that the printer was back in the building I had just left. So, I turned on my heel, retraced my steps and managed to find the right lab.

Printing took forever because I had, like, 14 pages I had written. Then, I proceeded out into the hall with my rickety old hole punch and worked in depleted silence to put the accursed thing together. At this point I realized I was about 15 minutes late to class already, but I didn't particularly care. I took my sweet time walking back to the library to retrieve my sunglasses and strolled into my classroom, trying my best not to look like I'd been sandal-ing my way around campus for the last hour in an absurd sort of quest.

From what I gather, this is a pretty normal college Finals experience, so I'm thankful for the practice I received, but I've decided to take my brother-in-law's advice. If you think something is going to take a certain amount of time, multiply that by 3 and you may actually come out all right.

Josiah Bell, Teen Blogger