Stress-full implies that something is filled to the brim with tangible stress, which is slightly different than stressful. Mostly because it has a hyphen and an extra 'l.'
So here I am, very much in the middle of crunch time, the time of the year infamous for its long communal nights in the library and nerve-wracking early mornings in solemn and eerily quiet lecture halls, and I am doing nothing but blogging. I'm also listening to indie music on Youtube and eating Munchies snack mix, which was created by what is obviously both the laziest and smartest snack company ever. (Hey guys, we've totally been going about this the wrong way! Instead of trying to come up with an original new inventive and delicious snack food, let's just take every other popular type of chip and pretzel and throw them together! Then we'll bag it up, sprinkle a little extra gritty cheese powder on, and ship it out!)
Exam time, the peripherally liminal period between the last day of class and the first day of vacation, is an inherently paradoxical time. It is filled with double standards, marked by an abnormal shift in societal norms and regularly accepted behavior, and received simultaneously with ecstatic celebration and both conventional and existential dread.
(I'm still uncertain about what I mean by "peripherally liminal," or "conventional dread," but I like it.)
Let's take me for example. My sleep patterns are sporadic and unpredictable. Since exams have started, however, I have not gone a night without a fully restful 8 hours of sleep. I've spent time and money going out to eat at least 4 times rather than eating in the cheap and conveniently close dining hall.
Exams have definitely included some work for me: Last Thursday I spent the entire day reading old British authors like Jonathan Swift and George Herbert. (These writers represent opposite poles of the complicated and colorful "British authors with cool names" spectrum.) (John Donne is somewhere in the middle, just below Shakespeare.) (I have mentioned John Donne in at least two separate blog posts. According to ancient tradition, I am now officially an English major forrealz. HUZZAH!) (The word sound at the end of "Herbert" is quite possibly the silliest sound in the English language. "Bert" "(mispronunciation)Sherbet" both sound very silly. What's curious is that it isn't the same if you change the "B"; "Kurt" does not sound silly at all. Maybe the feeling of silliness this evokes is entirely because of Bert and Sesame Street? [It has more of a cultural influence than we thought!] What is for sure though, is that if I ever own a gerbil his name will be Herbert the Gerbert. And that's real talk.)
On Friday I spent several hours simply typing in my notes about Ancient Israelite society and the way their conception of god effectively enforced redistribution of wealth as a mandatory feature of society and land ownership, in addition to the other aspects of social justice that played a prominent part in their civilization. (As much time as I spent copying notes, I probably spent at least twice as much time frenziedly scribbling societal insights, historical connections and philosophical or nonsensical musings into the margins.)
Inversely, I just spent all of Monday and Tuesday watching cheesy 90s movies and running through seasons of How I Met Your Mother and Arrested Development. I even went home on Sunday.
More than ever before in the semester, I see people with enormous amounts of spare time doing entirely unproductive and pointless things. Then I see a parade of soulless and downcast students who've spent upwards of 36 hours memorizing chemical equations with only short breaks for bagels and coffee. Only during exams do you see hundreds of people filling the pit for a midnight rave, moshing and crowd-surfing all over the place, only to see the huge mass of people immediately retreat into the library afterward to return to the grind.
Speaking of which, I was at that humongous midnight rave and it was marvelous. For a while us hundreds of students were just awkwardly standing around the pit, unsure of how things were going to go. Then suddenly music blared out of a speaker and the pit was filled to the brim with people. After accidentally hitting people in the face far more than was necessary, I decided to put my arm down and get on a friend's back. Sitting on his shoulders, I danced like it was the end of the world and hi-fived anyone who put their hands remotely close. I'm pretty sure I saw people I knew (and probably hi-fived them) but things were moving so fast that I couldn't really get a good look.
There was also a guy climbing up the tree in the middle of the pit; we didn't think he was gonna last very long.
I had so much spare time that I went to P.F.Changs on Tuesday. It was delicious and I drank so much lemonade that the waiter started calling me Captain Thirsty. I had fried rice and a friend of mine had pancakes. They had Hoisin sauce and pork and rice in the pancakes, but the fact remains that he was eating pancakes in a Chinese restaurant. Weird.
