As I write this, I am mentally recovering from a stressful yet strangely gratifying Biology 203: Comparative Anatomy and Physiology midterm.
This past week has consisted of my prioritizing studying above all else (eg work and fun), and now it's over… Until two weeks go by and I face my lab practical and psychology midterm.
The thing is, now that the midterm is over and I'm able to look through the haze that accompanies frantic studying, review sessions, and lack of sleep, I've learned a couple of things.
1. Your professors are just as stressed as you are about the test.
For some strange reason, I was under the notion that professors had one midterm (or maybe even three that they revolved?) already set and that they could just pull out at will before said midterm. Wrong, peoples.
Apparently some professors write a new test every year. In fact, on Tuesday (the midterm was Thursday) my professor was still writing her test! So she was just as stressed out as the students present and nervous in the review session.
Makes you look at things a little differently, especially in the middle of exams and nail-biting and sleepless hours.
2. Friends are important. Really important.
I think we've all experienced one or the other of the following. One, during a stressful (testing, for some) period we're apt to just "forget" about the test and procrastinate/hang out with our friends as much as sanely possible. Or the other, which is that when testing rolls around, you completely forget the names of your closest friends on campus. In some cases, off campus as well.
There's just one thing: These occurrences are detrimental to your mental health.
[My Wellesley little sister at Flower Sunday, yearly tradition! ]
Either way, people. So I've found that one needs to strike a balance: see your friends at meals and study otherwise.
3. Change, however little, is pretty hard to come by, especially when you're stuck in the Science Center at 9 pm on a Tuesday night.
Honestly, I never thought that a nickel (five cents) would be THAT hard to find, especially when one has 85 cents in nickels, dimes and a quarter. I spent maybe fifteen minutes asking people if they had a nickel, a NICKEL!, and no-one could help out.
Reason: A pack of lovely chocolatey milk M&Ms that were essential to my mental health and energy were trapped in the vending machine for a total price of 90 cents.
How hard could it be to find five cents? Hard, that's what.
In the end, I became so desperate for the sugar that I went to the Sage Lounge on the second floor of the Science Center and asked the first student that came in the doorway for 5 cents. She was lovely enough to hand me an entire quarter.
Essentially my point behind this long and fraught-filled story is: During midterms, students really come through for one another. Even for five cents.
So that's what my week's been like here at Wellesley. Even though it has been (a bit more) stressful, the week hasn't been any different from other weeks at the school: filled with little moments and realizations that make my day go by a little less stressfully.
[Unfortunately, a slightly squished photo of a delicious icecream I had over the summer. ]
Like the delicious rainbow sherbert in Stone-Davis today.Yum!