I may have suffered last week, but times have changed; I was so used to giving and now I get to receive. That’s right: my final papers are turned in, my takehome finals submitted on Canvas, and my ass has long since left each uncomfortable desk for each sit-down exam. I am done with finals on the first official day of Finals Week, and I’m leaving New York tomorrow.

Me and the squad looking down on youse

If I were to describe how I feel in a few words, they would be “free” and also “superior.” Ne’er again (till midterms next semester) will I enter the beige innards of Butler Library. Ne’er again (till midterms next semester) will I compile the most haphazard study guides known to mankind. Ne’er again (till midterms next semester) will I try to go full Charybdis on all the weeks of reading I didn’t do.

As I watch you mere mortals toil away, with your exams at 7:00 pm on the 20th and your papers due the morning of the 21st, I sit in my standard-issue dorm chair throne and laugh. When I get on that noontime United flight out of Newark, praying that I don’t get dragged from my economy aisle seat, my soul will be light with the knowledge that I am leaving this campus while others… aren’t. I have every Björk album downloaded on my Spotify, and not as study music, but as the soundtrack to my freedom; no longer am I held captive by “Classical Music for Studying & Brain Power | Mozart, Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky.” In short, there are no responsibilities to my name, and many responsibilities to all of yours.

To all y’all still staring down all that work, I have just two things to say:

(1) Can’t relate
(2) “Good luck,” because I think that’s what you say to people who have more thing to do. I don’t know, I can’t remember; it’s been so long, you see, since I’ve had to care about anything school-related. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Teamwork dreamwork via Pexels