Finals Week: Do or Die

Analogies are never perfect. Some, however, get pretty darn close. Though Alfred Lord Tennyson was supposedly writing about the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War, the eerie similarities between the experiences described in his iconic poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” and those experienced by college students during Finals Week makes me think he actually had the latter in mind.

Consider these pertinent stanzas:

Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

I must send Tennyson a thank you card for putting into words the despair the average college student feels during the one week of her life when she wishes she had been hit by a car at the age of 12.

Yet, as close as Tennyson was to my heart one week ago, he and his associations to finals week are now a distant memory. The last blue book has been closed. The last grade has been posted. The last Starbucks Red Eye has been consumed, at least for a little while. Now, I laugh in the face of the Light Brigade and instead watch the final two minutes of Braveheart on YouTube over and over and over again. For just as “The Charge of the Light Brigade” accurately described my life as it was one week ago, the final choked cry of “FREEEEEEEEEEDDDOOOOOMMMM” gasped by William Wallace at the end of Braveheart is the best analogy I can think of to represent what it feels like to be liberated from all academic obligations for the next four months.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m a total nerd. I love my school, I love learning, I love the smell (and taste) of books. But even total nerds relish the opportunity to throw down Kant and snatch up Cormac McCarthy, Jonathan Safran Foer, Tim O’Brien, or any other author they don’t have time to read during the nine months of the year we spend “acquiring wisdom.” So all I have to say is, good riddance, term papers! Good riddance, required reading! Good riddance, deadlines! This girl is free! This girl can do whatever she wants! The world (or library) is this girl’s oyster and she’s gonna make a pair of pearl earrings!

In reality, this girl is going to work all summer so that she can afford to repeat the torture of finals week next year. But at least for the next few days, she’s going to pretend like all that can come between her and the mysterious beast called “Pleasure Reading” is the many hours of sleep she plans to log first.

Are you done with finals? How does it feel??

Related post: How to Live in the Library