Midterms
Written October 25, 2002

Midterms. Everywhere. You can see their presence in the half-empty bars on weekends and the residence room lights that don’t switch off until five in the morning, temporarily converting the campus into a gaudily lit mini-Vegas of twilight silence. Their influence is heard in the frantic rustling of pages as students rush to cram that last Stats chapter into their head and the muffled weeping of girls and hey, maybe guys too, immediately after the fateful test. Midterms offend your nasal cavities in the form of toxic socks that have been worn for five days straight and filthy, food encrusted pajamas which own a near-permanent home on various individuals.

With all of these sensory assaults added to the usual pressure of writing numerous essays or exams in a relatively short period of time, it’s no wonder that stress levels have been sky-high lately. Although there are many possible psychological reactions to suddenly becoming burdened with massive tension, there seem to be a few unhealthy, albeit amusing, trends going around here at WLU. As a journalist of great moral integrity, I feel the need to warn the student population of these pitfalls in light of the upcoming horror known as December exams, even if it means fewer stories for me to exploit. That’s what Laurier is all about kids, personal sacrifice.

The biggest mistake that most people seem to make during midterms is consuming massive amounts of coffee, caffeine pills or other assorted wake-up drugs to power them through all night study sessions. This is a ridiculous habit to resort to because the only thing these ‘uppers’ really do is hype you up to the point where you can’t even focus on a textbook because your eyeballs are vibrating at supersonic frequencies and your hands are involuntarily playing a piano concerto on the page. Believe it or not, those are the positive benefits - once the high wears off you crash and burn with all the grace and style of a grizzly bear on heroin. You also get the added benefit of missing out on regular sleeping patterns, one of the most important components of effective memorization and coherent thought. In addition, your new zombie-like demeanor will be unlikely to impress most people unless they, too, are the walking dead.

Creating added stress through relationships is also a big winner at Laurier this year. It seems that people everywhere are picking the absolute worst times to “just be friends”, “think about seeing other people” or “schlock your girlfriend’s promiscuous roommate and hope wifey doesn’t find out”. You may think that make-up sex or furious beatings are sweet diversions from work, but consider saving this stuff for a later date. After all, it’s pretty tough to concentrate on culture industries and commodity fetishization when some psycho who used to be your significant other is in possession of your entire CD collection.

Hey, guess what else is a bad idea? Smoking copious amounts of marijuana on nights when you absolutely have to get work done. Unless you plan on writing a paper on the mysterious phenomenon of one of your buddies suddenly morphing into a giant chipmunk, getting blitzed is a surefire way to demolish any potential for productivity during the following few hours. People will try to tell you that it relaxes your mind and lets ideas flow, but staring at a cat for two hours will just make you more stressed when you sober up and realize what a stone-bag you’ve been. And just in case you’ve been misinformed, the pop-movie mantra “Study high, write the test high, get high marks” is about as ludicrous as the recent claims that WLU will be adequately equipped to handle the pseudo-triple cohort next year. No illicit substances during midterms.

Some people go the complete opposite route and lock themselves in their rooms for days on end like hermits, forgoing any kind of personal interaction so that they can anxiously pore over their notes for the ten thousandth time. Although this may seem like the ultimate in productivity, complete isolation from humanity typically leads to insanity or a nervous breakdown. To break this stress cycle in a friend and save them from the nuthouse, just gleefully tell them “Hey, don’t worry. This one test is only the rest of your life, you know!” Then when they’re finished crying, take them out for a few hours to remind them that university isn’t really all that bad.

If you stay away from these major behavioural deviations you should make it through midterms just fine. The only word of positive advice I can possibly offer is to remember that we’re supposed to be having the best time of our lives right now - try to enjoy it in a balanced manner. Life only goes downhill after university and if you don’t believe me, watch the movie Office Space sometime.

Midterms somehow got easier as I progressed through each year, despite the fact that I was constantly warned that it was only going to get harder. Lies! Lies from the administration!

About the column itself: picture what a grizzly bear on heroin would look like. What a fantastic mental image! Now picture him eating picnic baskets. That's right...ALL of the picnic baskets.