I'd like to tell you that there's good news and there's bad news, but that would be a lie. There's only bad news: finals week is upon us.

It's okay. Let it out. This is a safe place.

Thanksgiving (the best holiday of the season -- see this post) is coming up, and then we're going into Hell finals, and my current stress level far outranks my motivation. If you're in a similar boat, I have some inspiration for us: Tommitrise Collins.

You probably have no idea who that is. That's okay, too. I'm here to explain!

Tommitrise Collins is a 21-year-old from Macon, Georgia. She is, like you and I, a college student, with exams and papers to worry about. She recently had a psychology exam that I would imagine was pretty stressful for her. It was a two-hour online exam, and she was only allowed one day to complete it. Unfortunately for her, something kind of came up while she was working on the exam: labor.

Oh yeah, by the way, Tommitrise was pregnant, too.

One would assume that going into labor would probably make all thoughts of academic success fly out of the mother-to-be's mind pretty quickly. Hell, I can't even tell you the number of times over my entire scholastic career that I've let a cold or stomach bug be an excuse for slacking off. However, Tommitrise is a far better person than I, because she completed her exam. While in labor.

I'm not kidding, here's a picture:

This is what you call "Strong Priorities". Contractions 3 minutes apart and still takes her Psychology Test! You are going to be a great Mom baby sis!
Posted by Shanell Brinkley-Chapman on Thursday, November 12, 2015

That's right. Homegirl straight up finished an entire psych exam whilst preparing to give birth. That is a dedication to education that I have never experienced before. This woman is an actual academic badass. Luckily enough, I am not going into this finals week preparing to give birth, and neither are the vast majority of you. This is both good and bad news for us. The good news is that you're probably not about to experience the very painful miracle of childbirth anytime soon. The bad news is that this girl just absolutely destroyed pretty much any excuse for failure that you and I could have conceived.

(Please laugh at my use of "conceived.")

This is my new finals week mantra: if Tommitrise can pass a psych exam with contractions coming every three minutes, I can pass media law with a headache. You can do it too. And if this doesn't motivate you toward academic success, then well that's another story.