I’m going to preface this with a few things. I am a freshman, yes, and this is only my second finals season. I’m not the exhausted-yet-experienced senior sloshing through the haze of thesis papers and capstone recitals. However, I don’t think that invalidates my own struggles. I haven’t had near as much time to become comfortable with the college routine and I certainly haven’t experienced the full workload, given that high school was an absolute joke. In regards to my lower level education, if anything it left me more unprepared than prepared having never had to study anything for any class and still managing to graduate with honors. Having to study for a large important final and put in hours of work is exhausting for me as someone with a short attention span and chronic laziness.
So where does "Star Wars" play into this?
Well for me, the now-Disney franchise is a coping method for the stress I’ve never felt before in my life and it’s not unheard of for people to look to books or TV when taking a break from studying.
A typical day for me includes going to class, usually eating a bagel or two for lunch, spending two hours in the freezing recital hall for choir, then returning to my room to work on homework. However usually after half-assing my assignments, I give up and watch YouTube or play a video game, at which point my brain goes into low power mode and it’s near impossible to reinvigorate myself to continue working. This is why on days when I really do need to study, I go to the library and camp for several hours of nonstop, brain-melting work. Halfway through the semester I was so burned out I had resigned myself to sleeping and hoping life would just stop. This was the first revelation I had was that no, time and life would not just stop.
The second revelation was that if I couldn’t figure out a new way to focus on my school work, I was going to spiral out of control.
Back to "Star Wars."
The Original and Prequel trilogies have been a massive part of my childhood, as they had for most millennials. When the newest movie dropped late last year, it felt as if my life turned upside down, filled with fan art and prediction theories. Merchandise passed through my hands like water flowing over stones in a river. It kept me sane as I fell farther and farther behind.
Which got me thinking, could I turn my near obsession into a way to cope with the mounds of assignments? I could. And I did.
Instead of vegging out while watching a movie as a way to relax after an assignment, I’d type away at theories and analysis essays or draw fan art. My mind was engaged--keeping me from becoming bored of work--yet it was relaxing because I was focusing on something I was passionate about. Soon, when I began sleeping less due to stress-fueled insomnia, "Star Wars" literature of the Extended Universe filled the hours until my eyes physically could not stay open and the words seemed to be going a million miles across the page, yet slow as a turtle at the same time.
Thinking of "Star Wars" instead of the assignments I hadn’t done was what helped me and I believe similar coping methods could help others like me, unprepared for the workload of college and desperate for a way to keep their head above water.
