It is officially April, and for college students on the semester system, that means that you have a little over a month to get your life together.

It is the best of times. It is the worst of times. On the one hand, summer vacation is so close that you can already visualize the long, relaxing days napping in bed. On the other hand, that also means there is less time to save your GPA.

I might only be a freshman in college, but I know what crunch time is. It is quite reminiscent of my high school days — trying to clutch my grades so I could be accepted into college. But the difference in college is that while you’re trying to find the motivation to complete your work, you can vaguely hear the echo of “C’s get degrees” in the back of your head.

But if you’re anything like me, a C can be pretty unsatisfactory. This is the constant battle of being both a perfectionist and procrastinator. It is even more frustrating when you feel like you need more time to get your grades up, but you also just want to fast forward to summer.

The end of the semester is always quite taxing, and you would think that I would have learned from my past mistakes. But stress, exhaustion, and procrastination are a powerful trio that gets the best of me every single year, and will probably continue to do so in the years to come. No matter how close we are to summer, there are still a load of projects, essays, and exams to worry about. It’s like running the last mile of a race: you’re almost done, and yet the final stretch is still the most exhausting part.

All I can think about is how much I need summer vacation. Even though I’ll probably have to pick up a summer job, like many broke college students do, it still sounds a whole lot better than the academic stress I am under currently. It is crazy to think that I’m only in my freshman year, and that this is technically supposed to be the easiest it will get. I hope that in the years to come, I’ll have the strength and resilience to get through the end of the year more gracefully, because currently, I feel like a mess.

But nonetheless, I have to carry on. Even though I will most likely be dead by the end of the semester, at least my grades will be decent. I already asked my mom if it’s okay if I drop out, but she says I’m already in too much debt. So it goes.

If you’re like me, struggling to make it to the end, I hope you find it in you to get everything done. I hope that you get an A on your final, and that essay grade is rockin’. If you’re on the quarter-system and still have 10 weeks left, you are in my prayers. Good luck. I’ll be finding the motivation to start on the project I have due Wednesday, while day-dreaming about the beach.