The End is Near!

Two down, one to go. It is finals week at HACC, a week that lives in ambiguity. I anticipate it on the one hand and loathe it on the other, and there is no in-between ground to anchor my emotions to.I love the fact that finals symbolize a completion of a cycle. It gives a finality to your studies and allows you to have a clear sense of closure and accomplishment. These things give me joy, especially this semester.

I have been begging for the end of this semester since Spring Break. This in itself is loaded with all kinds of contrary emotions and logic. Contradictions R' Us. But that is a whole other can of worms to be dissected in a later blog (psst, check back Friday).

I loathe the anxiety and the sudden feeling of being rushed that comes with tests. I hate that you rarely find out how well you performed on the final test, though some teachers are very sympathetic to this plight and make themselves available for some form of communication with their students after the completion of the term. I love those types of teachers, and to be honest, I have not ran into one yet that shot down a request for follow up information from a student. Oh, that is not quite true, I just remembered one math teacher (pre-algebra, shut-up, twenty years is a long time to kill off precious brain cells...mine were the math ones), who saw the last class as the last chance for interaction, but even he made sure to grade the tests right there so any student patient enough would be able to see how they scored.

Mostly I hate the anxiety. The build up to test day is just an intense little pre-practice for my mind to plan the best way to sabotage me. Yes, it is out to get me! I swear...a fact that can only mean one of two things; I either need to be medicated or I am seriously screwed because I am my own worse enemy. Medication probably could not hurt in either case...nah, costs too much and then I will need medicine to counteract the side effects of my medication, which will cause other side effects that will require shifting around to other medications as the doctor tries to see how I will react to a new drug fresh off the pharmaceutical show floor...but I digress.

Yes, I definitely hate the anxiety the most. Your heart is beating erratically, your mind races, and try as you might, you can not focus on the task at hand because you are obsessing over the task to come...and then suddenly there it is, the exam is right in front of you. Your hand cramps because you are convulsively gripping the pen and your mind threatens to go blank as you read the questions. Suddenly, you find you are done and all that stress, all that worry was for naught because the teacher really did mean it when she said not to worry the test will not be that hard. As euphoria gripes your battered synapses, you stave it off by berating yourself from allowing yourself to stress over it in the first place, ruining a beautiful natural high.

*SIGH*

well that is were I am at right now. I guess I will just have to go and seek a less organic elevation of my emotions...it comes in a beautiful can, which, chilled to the right temperature can induce its own special rapture...

Tah! (or more appropriately, Prost!)