It’s that time of the year again- christmas carollers are roaming the street ensuring that the five syllables sha la la la la are repeating in your mind as you try to concentrate in the library. Christmas is approaching but exams are commencing. As some people happily sit by the fire infront of the TV, that seems like a long distant memory to many students.

You suddenly realise days have gone by where the only social interaction had is with Dan Humphrey on Gossip Girl whose dramatic life is making studying seem like a lot less hassle. Although your mum rings for daily check ups and all you can manage to say is “I’m FINE“, but you sound a lot less convincing than Ross in Friends.

The library is an even more terrifying sight as hundreds of hunched bodies ensure there is no seat left available and their judging eyes stare as you walk past secretely screaming HELP ME. Searching for new places to study has become the perfect procrastination excuse, although this has become the new hot topic of conversation and is complained about to everyone you meet. You can’t afford to use up too much of the oil in your college house and the sink is overflowing with dishes so you try to avoid home. Wherever you go, all you are thinking about is going back into bed and finding out how worse life on the upper east side can get.

Before you know it, it’s the night before your first exam and you’re waiting for the adrenaline to kick in so the motivation can boost you to cram. You calmly highlight notes and take regular breaks of staring into the distance as an award for your effort. It’s nearly midnight, and that must mean you’re trying really hard because you’ve been sitting at the desk for hours. But if you minus all of the time spent glancing at your wall or your mobile phone, or walking into the kitchen to get something but forgetting, then you’ve probably only been studying for approximately 30 minutes…

Then, something happens. Panic kicks in, REAL PANIC. You are actually genuinely concerned for your grades.

This leads to sleep deprivation from either attempting to pull all – nighters or attempting to sleep when your body isn’t ready. Regardless, your brain is over active and won’t let you rest because it wants to remind you of that time in 2007 when Britney shaved her hair off and used an umbrella as a weapon. Then, something rings. At this hour, who could be calling? It’s your alarm interrupting those neverending thoughts, and now you feel sleepy and don’t want to leave bed.

Hoping a berocca will cure your problems, you jump off the mattress and learn that it’s still dark at 7 a.m. You pack your umbrella in your bag incase it decides to rain, which it usually does. But this time, you are using it for something else, not as a weapon, but for the unexpected snow. Studying has officialy made you a grinch as you even find yourself complaining about snow.

There is a queue approaching the exam hall and you quickly scout for a safe place to hide your bag which contains your phone/laptop/purse, then instead throw it casually in a corner to convince all of your secret non-existent stalkers that there is noting special in it.

You stroll into the exam hall and hope if you act calm it might make you feel calm. You say hi to a friend and immediately regret it because shes’s panicking more than you and convinced that everything you’ve studied isn’t on the paper.

The clock ticks and you are smiling when you open the exam paper to find the topics you’ve “studied” have come up:

“Write about how stress is not just a negative experience”.

You glance at the page twice wondering has this lecturer gone insane, all you wanted to write about was how stressful stress is and reference your personal experience. Suddenly, you feel like a genius and get a burst of knowledge from nowhere. You’re using longer words that sound smart but have no clue whether they are relevant to the sentence or not but there’s no time to think about it as your hand is moving at 100 miles per hour.  This adrenaline rush must be a positive aspect of stress, you find yourself thinking.

Someone’s phone goes off in the hall but there’s no time to join in on the dissaproving glances because you’ve been informed there’s only 10 minutes left.

An examiner decides to stand beside you and stare as you struggle to write a conclusion when you can’t even read your hand writing anymore. The examiner says ‘your time is up’ and your hand burns as the pen drops

You’re fully awake and want to celebrate after completing an exam and discovering none of your possessions were stolen. Except, you still have four more exams left. So you reluctantly stroll towards the library in hope of studying and after surprisingly securing a seat, decide to write a blog post instead.

Happy studying

Over and out –

Saoirse