Oh finals week, you're upon us again to stress us out, make us pull our hair and learn how to chug three cups of coffee in one sitting (well, not me, but everyone else). You're the gift that keeps on giving twice a year. Honestly, I don't like you much, finals week, and I believe that the feeling may be mutual because you place all of your weight on my shoulders and try to crush my spirit. However finals week, you forgot one thing: as students, we don't break that easy. We may bend, we may falter, we may throw a hissy fit...but at the end of the day we walk away knowing we did all we could.

In fact finals week, a little part of me wants to thank-you (but I won't) because you allow me to realize what's ahead. I recollect myself, the not-so-fragile remains that chipped off during the week and walk out exhausted. Once I get home, I drop like a dead fly on my bed and take a break for a couple of days. Then I get back to studying, to reading, to looking ahead. Whether it be at my goals, my aspirations, or just the next semester, I look ahead. Knowing that through that week I did all I could and have mentally exhausted myself to the brink. "Don't push me cause I'm close to the edge, I'm trying not to lose my head." It's rather applicable to finals week, despite really talking about the ghettos.

I've grown a further appreciation of my semester, my friends, my loved ones and myself during finals week. At the end of the week we come together, hang out, talk about the hardest final, the easiest one, the one we got that one answer wrong but we totally knew the answer.

Finals week, I don't like you because you stress me to no end. Finals week, I don't like you because you dangle my grade in front of my face. So much depends on how well I do on you. Which is annoying. But it's part of the whole college experience. At the end of the day, at the end of the week we brush off and leave another semester. I'll never miss you because I'm not that crazy, but I'll miss this odd time of reflection.

I'll miss the days, when they're gone, of thinking what's after college. I'll miss the days hanging with my friends in the on-campus Rec center when I should be studying. Certainly I'll miss wondering what the future has to hold when the future I dream of now becomes my present. But why am I writing an article to finals week on finals week as a sophomore? I have to get back to studying for a Sociology final, a biology final and a communications final. I signed up for this, I'll take the challenges associated with it. Heck, I'll have a few more finals weeks ahead even after this one, but it'd be nice if I didn't.

Side Note: How do nursing majors survive finals week?