“No days off” is the truest, most honest statement that describes how the month of January has been for me. At the beginning of the semester, we were told that our winter break would be for a long two months. At the time, I was buzzing because finally, I would get a break from the madness of school and coaching to just focus on the important things… sitting on my butt, eating to my heart’s content and binge watching all the Netflix series I’ve missed. I was genuinely looking forward to some well-earned rest and relaxation. However, I slowly realized that the two months off would not be the peaceful veg out session I had in mind. Rather, it would be deemed as the most hectic holiday month of my entire life.
The difficulty of this month can be credited to exams being taken at the end of January. Rather than an anticipated month of lounging around, the entirety of it was spent studying day in and day out for the four finals lined up back to back, all in one week. Yes, taking exams all in a row is an intimidating feat, but the fact that each final determined 70% (100% for one of the classes!) of each class really made passing seem nearly impossible. Many thoughts flew through my brain like, “How much of this material do I need to know?… Maybe if I stare at it long enough, the information will engrain in my head… Please, academic gods, take the wheel!!”
Without trying to be, I couldn’t help but feel pressured. No matter how hard I worked to calm my nerves, test anxiety invaded my mind like a weed and even tormented me in my sleep. It was such a different experience from what I’m used to since my undergraduate exams were taken in December, a week after the last day of classes. Exams in December makes sense since the material was still so fresh in my head. January testing just feels so wrong and unnecessary. Aside from the worry and doubt, I found a way to push through and completed each final one by one. I walked out of my last exam with one thing on my mind, FREEDOM.
Moral of the story is, if you have the right attitude and a will to persevere, you can accomplish even the most daunting tasks that life throws out at you.
“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right” – Henry Ford.
