OK, fine. I’ll admit it: I am a bit of an overachiever. I start studying for finals weeks before. I make flash cards with definitions and assemble all my notes that I can actually read and skim over the book since I didn’t actually read it the first time. Lame, I know. But the problem here is that I start all of this two or three weeks before my actual test, and by the time the test rolls around, I am tired of studying and start my procrastination.
So, instead of studying during finals week, I think of everything possible I can do so I don’t have to keep my nose in the books for three days. I decided that as a senior and this being my fourth year to take finals, I have the authority to give study tips / how not-to-study tips to all the freshmen who have no idea what is about to hit them.
All of my finals have been exactly what I expected: hard. But for some reason, each year I find a way not to study until the night before the test, and then I am stuck cramming into the wee hours of the morning instead of finishing my studying the week before like I had originally planned. You would think that, after seven semesters of doing the exact same thing, I would learn my lesson and not get stuck cramming again, but, as you can see, that hasn’t happened yet.
So, because I have gotten so good at not studying during finals week, I figured everyone would enjoy my suggestions of things to do to procrastinate during finals week. Here ya go:
1. Go to the MSU Library Rave Dec. 5 at 10 p.m., ready to dance
2. Meet with your study groups … but don’t study
3. Catch up on “Texts from Last Night”
4. Facebook your ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend’s step-sister’s boyfriend’s brother
5. Bake cookies for your favorite overachievers
6. Create your “I’ll study later” playlist on Pandora
7. Play “Words with Friends” with all of your other procrastinating friends
8. Go to Bops for the “Dan Mullen”
9. Get hot chocolate from Strange Brew
10. Browse through old Reflector articles about the joys of finals week
11. Go get some yogurt from Local Culture
12. Re-watch every episode of “Weeds” on Hulu
13. Have a Bulldog Deli cup stacking competition with all the cups you have accumulated over the semester
14. Calculate the lowest grade you can get on the final in order to still pass the class
15. Go trick-or-treating through your dorm with Christmas stockings
16. Google map China to Japan and read number 42
17. Rearrange your entire apartment or dorm
18. Start working out like you have been saying you were going to all semester
19. Watch the top 50 videos on YouTube
20. Start that blog you have been thinking about for weeks that you will never update again
21. Take a ride around campus on a Bully Bike
22. Ride the shuttle around campus
23. Find bowl game tickets and book your hotel
24. Go to the Refuge
25. Plan the road trip you are going to take to visit all your friends over winter break
26. Do all of The Reflector’s crosswords you halfway finished during the semester
27. Help your friends procrastinate while procrastinating yourself
28. Make your Christmas list
29. Play “Call of Duty” until 4 a.m.
30. Download all your favorite songs on iTunes
31. Start packing to go home even though you aren’t leaving anytime soon
32. Have “board game night” with 20 of your closest friends
33. Go through the last 50 pages of awkwardfamilyphotos.com
34. Sleep with your books under your pillow so you’ll absorb the information they contain
35. Watch reruns of all the football games you’ve recorded over the semester
36. Go on Facebook, look at your friend list, and try to remember how you met each of them
37. Go to icanhascheezburger.com and look at all the cute kittehs
38. Go on Netflix and choose the next 10 movies you’re going to watch
39. Watch the 10 movies on Netflix you chose to watch
40. Sell back your books (it’s not like you’re going to use them anyway)
41. Finish shopping for everyone on your Christmas list
42. Go to stumbleupon.com
43. Go to peopleofwalmart.com
44. Go to Walmart and take pictures of people to put on peopleofwalmart.com
45. Wash your sheets and towels because you know you haven’t done that in a couple of months
46. Get a significant other in time for the gift-giving season
47. Go play trivia one more time at Dave’s
48. Go on a scavenger hunt around campus
49. Call your friends at Ole Miss and laugh at them … just laugh
50. Make a list of all the things you could do to procrastinate
April Windham is the editor in chief at The Reflector. She can be contacted at [email protected].