Classes have been in session for two official months now, and with that came two months of 8AM's, late nights, quizzes, tests, clubs, tutoring, projects, lectures, and seminars. You've been busy, and it hasn't been easy, but you're here for the long haul. You enrolled in college for a brighter future, you're here because you want to be, right? Well you thought so, until you have your mid-semester crisis, an entirely parallel concept to that of a mid-life crisis where everything you thought you knew about yourself and where you wanted to go in life now comes into serious question.

One week you're enjoying the fall foliage and apple cider everything, cruising through classes, noticing the work starting to have picked up a little, but you're handling it with a little tighter time management. Then those two weeks of hell come, where each of your professors have suddenly decided that within these two weeks they will have an exam, a midterm, a group project, and a paper due, and then claim that you should have seen it coming because it's been on the syllabus since the first day of class. Such a friendly reminder is taken in stride and you've started to mentally plan it out until you go to your next three classes, and you hear the same spectacular news. Now you attempt to keep your cool, but then you go back to your room and start looking at everything you now have due, and it hits you. The odds you're accomplishing all of these things and still having time to for reasonable sleep, or let alone eating a semi-realistic meal are definitely not in your favor.

So you start the next few days with some headstrong progress and you seem to really be making some headway until you start getting tired of such constant work, and you begin getting distracted and procrastinating. Cue the emotions. At this point, you're overtired, overworked, and overwhelmed. You have convinced yourself you're screwed. You're easily irritable, semi bipolar, and you're still wearing what you slept in last night and it's 7PM. Next, you hit a wall, where you shut down and can't do anything other than lay on your bed, cry, and contemplate every choice you've ever made and what possessed you to put yourself through the dreadful horrors of college.

Fortunately, time doesn't stop, and the days keep going by and you slowly but surely make your way through these dreaded two weeks, one project, one test, one nap at a time. For obvious reasons, you can't always devote your full attention to one task like you'd wish you could, but equal effort for every assignment and night of studying is the most you can afford in a time like this. Your grades most likely will not be returned as all A's but you will in fact survive regardless. Eventually there does seem to be a dim light at the end of the tunnel, and you're beginning to cheer up and remember why you're here and how all of this stress will lead you where you want to go in the end.

So for now, keep chugging, and remember everyone else experiences this same hectic point of the semester, you're not the only one. Use your time wisely, find productive study groups, go to office hours for help before the test, utilize your campus writing center to proofread your papers, and always make sure there's time to stop for coffee before class. You can do it, power through, remember why you're here, work your butt off, and keep your homework candy drawer fully stocked at all times. You'll be okay, the stress level will drop, and soon enough you'll be home on Thanksgiving break relaxing with your friends and family, getting spoiled with one home-cooked meal after another living the hog's life.