Struggling towards the finish line
When people used to talk to me about finals, I assumed they’d be like my A Levels: I’d be permanently exhausted, wandering from one exam to the next, and all I’d ever do was work.
I also thought that I’d get rather stressed – or, at the very least, panicked – and end up having arguments with everyone I knew. Thus far, that hasn’t happened. Mainly because I do English, so I’ve had a single exam (which I did worry about no end, but I can’t summon the energy to be concerned about it now it’s over); but also because the mood that appears to be characterising this final term at York is boredom.
Every morning I wake up insanely early to the sinking feeling that I’m going to have to spend the whole day in front of a computer, and it’s beyond depressing. I would stay at home to work, but my laptop’s chosen this crucial moment to break down (I swear, it has some kind of sixth sense about how best to get at me), so I have to trek over to campus; and now that the sun is out, all I can hear, wherever I’m working, is the sound of all the lucky, carefree students who still have years at university ahead of them. It’s made me bitter enough that whenever it starts raining torrentially, I cheer up no end.
It’ll all be over soon enough I suppose. What’s driving me mad, though, is the fact that I could finish the essays I’m currently working on much more quickly, and be free to go and sit outside, if only I weren’t so bored of them that I can’t spend longer than about ten minutes working without checking the cricket score on the Internet or adding items to my Amazon wish list. I’m coming to understand that when people speak about finals with that awed dread, it’s not because of the tiredness, or the workload, or anything like that: it’s because your final term just gradually grinds you down, to the point where you can barely be bothered to speak in full sentences. Still, I suppose it’s character building. Not that that’s any consolation.
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