Finals week is staring me in the face and it's time to get serious. While this week is (as it should be) a heavy workload, it's also kind of silly. What's funny about finals week is how common conversational exchanges often seem to be reduced to an unstated competition to find who has the most burdensome, unmanageable workload. Instead of talking about notable news or common interests, the conversations default to a list of the surmounting tasks that the student unknowingly chose to take on when they enrolled in all their classes. Peoples' conversations start sounding a little like these:"Hey! How are you?"
"Oh I'm fine. I just finished a 25-page paper while standing on my head."
"Oh."
"Heyyy what's upp did you finish our report that's due tomorrow..."
"Well I'm halfway there but only because yesterday I had to go to three different finals that are all scheduled at the same time, but it's cool because I'll just take about 30 more Adderall than usual and I'll whip it out in no time."
"You look a little tired? Do you have a lot of work this week?"
"Um, YES. I haven't slept in four days and the last time that happened was before I went to rehab. I'm considering taking up meth again I'm so tired. I have three papers to write by tomorrow, two are fifteen pages and the other is twenty. The twenty pager I haven't attended class since October."
"Wow, that's too bad."
"Hey, sorry if I seem anxious, I just have this in-class essay in thirty minutes and I feel a little underprepared."
"Oh, that's not that bad, I have an in-class exam this afternoon and we're not allowed to use pens or pencils."
It's like people start making things up just to show how burdened they are! And thank goodness for Attention Deficit Disorder; if that didn't exist, where would Adderall be and how would some people pass their finals? Funny story-- one of my friends once dated this guy that would never EVER smoke pot, but was a HUGE fan of Adderall. I mean, how much more stupid could you get? One is an amphetamine engineered in chemical labs and the other is a plant! Talk about doing something because The Man told you to... Well, I better go, I have a forty-page English paper to finish thats due yesterday and we have to write it in pig-latin.
1 comment:
Honey, I'm so proud of you when I read your stuff. As much as you piss me off and you're such a complete asshole, it's still a huge thrill to realize how talented you are. Your post about the finals exaggeration thing is so much like my rant about how people are always competing about how busy they are. Like if you say, "I took a shower today," the person you're talking to will say "Oh, that must be nice. I wish I had time to take a shower." Like, they beat you. It's so stupid. Anyway, you nailed it and made me laugh after a very crappy day. Don't stop.
Post a Comment