Dear Grace,
Finals are coming up and I have no idea how I am going to pass my classes! Studying seems impossible, but if I don’t do something fast, I fear my resulting 1.8 grade point average will be insufficient in maintaining my scholarship and prolonging my career at Pepperdine.
Spring Fever
Dear Spring Fever,
Who knew there were only four weeks of school remaining? I too recently noticed this astonishing reality and proceeded to whimper in despair upon logging into Courses for the first time this semester only to realize exactly how high each of my finals grades will have to be in order to receive passing credit in all 18 of my units. Despite the violent tremors induced by the mental shock of every 94 percent or higher I will need to earn before April is out, some mystical, intangible force seems to repel me away from Payson Library and off campus in order to partake in practically any activity not associated with studying for finals.
How might one scrape together enough academic gusto to crawl across spring 2012’s finish line? Your guess is as good as mine. Thus, in the absence of any pragmatic advice, I will instead suggest the most worthwhile activities you might partake in as fair trade for the failing grades you will, at this point, inevitably receive. Some activities I find the most rewarding in lieu of writing papers, studying for tests and submitting assignments in a timely matter (or at all) are as follows:
No. 1 Take an extended catnap.
Is your workload simply too overwhelming? Take a day off and stay in bed, you’ve earned it! Tell your roomie to be a doll and bring you that gallon of ice cream from the freezer; you’re set for an entire 24 hours spent without moving any body part but your neck. It’s about time you upgraded to Hulu Plus; treat yourself to the 54 most recent episodes of “Scrubs” and indulge in a well deserved mental detox. That faint nudge of guilt you feel for wasting the thousands of dollars going toward every invaluable moment of Religion 102? Three days in bed, and it’s entirely gone.
No. 2 Take joy in the failure and frustration of others.
Spent too many consecutive days in all-consuming lethargy? Consider a shower and head toward Payson. Don’t bother bringing your laptop; put those books down! Instead, grab a crinkly wrapper, your cell phone and camp out in the overcrowded aisles of the least productive environment ever masked as a hall of higher learning. The contrived frenzy of students who think Payson might be at all helpful in promoting a strict work ethic will heighten as you casually munch a stalk of celery in the carrel across from the one girl who tries too hard in Literary Theory. Indeed, take joy in the frustrated sighs of students who pretend to be disrupted when they are, in reality, posting status after status lamenting the amount of work they haven’t actually begun: “FINALS=LIFE=JOKE #poliscimajor #freshman #dyinggggg.”
No. 3 Test your creativity in inventing extension requests.
Are you worried you might regret your languor come May 1? It’s always good to have a trail of emails between a professor and yourself lest you spontaneously decide to submit something long after its original due date. Concocting wild stories, invented tragedy and debilitating illness can occupy an expansive chunk of time when one wishes not to study. In the likely event that this contributes to the failure of your course, you might later compile these messages into a Creative Writing senior portfolio.
