I The only thing worst than finals is midterms week. All college students have to deal with it, and it's never pretty. Somehow, it always seems to sneak up on you and leave you more broken than you were before. Here are the five stages of midterms week:
1. Denial
As February slowly ends and March creeps up, you watch midterms week grow closer in silent denial. You watch your friends start to prepare for their tests and spend more time in the library while you binge watch "Fuller House" on Netflix and promptly ignore your impending doom. You can feel yourself becoming more and more screwed, and you can almost hear your mom lecturing you about your fallen GPA, but you just don't care. You brush off anyone who says the "M" word and politely excuse yourself from their company. You're so far in denial that you're deeper and more trapped than those Chilean Miners back in 2010.
2. Anger
About five days before midterms week begins, you realize that you simply can't run from the truth anymore. As you print endless study guides and try to find the time to cram, your denial quickly turns to anger. As you quietly gripe about everything wrong with "society," you wonder how you could have survived 20 years in a world so cruel. Why do all of your tests have to be in one week? Not only is that seriously unfair, but it also seems pretty inefficient. You drop about 70 F-bombs in the deep recesses of your mind, all while pretending you're totally okay...even though you're on three hours of sleep.
3. Bargaining
Somewhere about three days before your plethora of exams commence, you turn to God. You have some one-on-one time with the big man upstairs and make some hefty promises in exchange for passing grades. Some of the things you promise are:
•To go to church more
•To call your mom more
•To procrastinate less next time
•To write to your grandparents
•To sell your soul for quite the bargain
But alas, God is having none of your lazy bullsh*t, which brings us to stage number four.
4. Sadness
It's 24 hours before your first exam, and you've just reached a point of the purest sadness you've ever felt. As you cram your fourth Subway cookie of the hour into your mouth, you're pretty sure that this is, in fact, what rock bottom feels like. Why do you do this to yourself? You had plenty of time to study, and while binge watching "Fuller House" (which is amazing by the way) was a stellar call, you regret everything. You feel sadder than you did when your fish died when you were 6, which is really saying something. And as you reach for Subway cookie number five, you feel the tears start to roll.
5. Acceptance
As you slip on your frumpiest sweatpants and rub your tired eyes before your first exam of the week, you realize that at this point, it is what it is. You feel strangely at peace with your life as you pack up your pens and pencils and roll out of the door. You know what? The curve is the most beautiful thing since Zac Efron post-puberty. Trust it. You've done your best, kind of, and are ready for whatever this test can throw at you. Unless it's calculus. No one is ever ready for that. But you're cool, you're zen and you've got this (maybe).
