The Descent

Either into madness, manic-ness, or general hermit-dom. Also known as compressed quarter finals period. It seems oh so far away until suddenly it occurs to you that you have 24 hours until your first exam begins and about 64 hours until your first paper is due. Enter freak-out zone. Sleep becomes a suggestion, caffeine a necessity.  Every muscle from the middle of your spine to the top of your head is tied in innumerable knots, a perpetual headache from staring at a computer screen as you put together outlines and paper, transitioning somewhat haphazardly between them. An alternating soundtrack of your own panic, classical music, John Williams symphonies, Daft Punk and all kinds of lame pop music scores this descent into the bowels of hell that are more affectionately known as law school finals.

Somewhere along the way you begin deeply and profoundly resenting every person that takes up more than half a table (even though you're doing precisely that) and doesn't, for all you know, have a pressing exam that could determine their ability to do their summer job or graduate on time. You then slowly begin rethinking your life choices, craving a small, furry animal to cuddle with, and waxing nostalgic for the first year of law school (no joke, that part is a horrifying realization).

My solution to all of this (insomuch as there is any solution whatsoever) is to drink all the caffeine (but match it with equal amounts of water), suddenly become religious about taking all of the vitamins and dietary supplements, suddenly start more or less living in various coffee shops, stress clean, and (for no apparent reason whatsoever) stop eating meat. This basically means that I live on probably unhealthy amounts of caffeine, a lot of grilled veggie related things, in work out clothes, and with an ever present bottle of advil. I'm not sure if any of this can be qualified as "winning", but it's keeping me from totally losing it, and will hopefully ensure effective condensing and cramming of material into my brain. However, I'm starting to feel like I might go crosseyed from looking at screens and might start floating away based on the sheer volume of liquid I've been consuming. It's truly disconcerting.

That's all I've got for now - my goal is to have more than a page of outline for every hour I've been working on this stupid class. And then I get to work on two papers, and then another outline that I haven't touched yet. Condensed quarter = dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.