Anyone at Corban University that has taken a class with Professor Allen Jones has heard his famous "finals week" speech. The essence of the speech is that students should pace themselves so that they do not get burnt out from studying. Rather, they should be intentional about getting plenty of sleep, eating right, and setting aside a few hours of each day to do something fun to relax their overworked minds. I took Allen's advice during dead week and finals week, so without further adieu, I present a list of the fifteen best things I did throughout the past two weeks that helped me de-stress from exams.

1. Decorating our dorm lobbies

Several of my friends and I joined forces to decorate our residence hall for Christmas. Not only were we able to get our minds off finals for a few hours, but we managed to make our living space look festive.

2. Intense foosball games

My friend Grace and I decided to head over to our brother dorm Wednesday night to hang out for a while. Incidentally, we ended up staying there until midnight playing foosball.

3. Making gingerbread houses

What better way to relieve the stress of finals week than to make gingerbread houses? I dare you to think of one (I’ll bet you can’t).

4. The night of three restaurants

Every college student has made middle of the night runs to a fast food restaurant. But tell me, have you ever fit six people into a five person car and gone to Taco Bell, Jack in the Box, and Albierto’s at one in the morning on dead week? I have.

5. Christmas movie marathon

Girls from my hall got together to have the best Christmas movie marathon ever; it included Elf, Charlie Brown Christmas, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, and various cheesy Hallmark movies that you've probably never heard of.

6. Dramatic poetry readings

Guys from our brother dorm joined us Monday night for dramatic readings of Christmas-themed poetry. It was quite the experience.

7. Christmas sweaters

My friend and I hit the stores to buy matching Christmas sweaters that are a true representation of our inner selves. Yes, we are both grandmothers at heart.

8. Eggnog pong

Our dorm Christmas party got wild when we started playing eggnog-pong. Yes, this is how we live it up at a Christian school.

9. Baking cookies

I burned off some steam by baking cookies for the girls in my hall on Tuesday. It helped that I got to eat some of the dough.

10. Christmas caroling

The Fragaard community came together to sing Christmas carols and drink hot cocoa.

11. Movie date

My friend Ashlyn and I went to see Moana together. Should we have been studying? Probably. Do we regret it? Not at all.

12. The nog jog

A group of us went to support our friends over in Farrar for an annual event called the Nog Jog. This event entails that everyone participating must drink a half-gallon of eggnog and proceed to run to the end of the street and back. The aftermath was disgusting, but undeniably entertaining.

13. Impromptu pictures with Sam-ta

Sam, the AAC for the Fraagard community dressed up as Santa for the dorm’s Christmas party. Naturally, we took a bunch of pictures with him.

14. Snow

Things got exciting when it snowed on Thursday; needless to say, there were snowball fights. Ironically, the snow caused my flight to get canceled, and I was stuck in Salem an extra two days (but that's beside the point).

15. Which Farrarian should you date?

Finals week ended on a high note when a group of guys from Farrar created a quiz for the ladies of Corban to determine who from Farrar they should date. (Don’t ask me who I got, I’ll never tell).