F.I.N.A.L.S. Week In Review (Part One)

Now that I have gotten through F.I.N.A.L.S. without

1. murdering a fellow student

2. shooting myself

3. punching a baby

I can finally tell you all the magic and delight that was F.I.N.A.L.S. weeks (Here, magic and delight means extreme amounts of anger and stress, a total lack of sleep that your body has become used to, the morbid thoughts of bleeding out on your chemistry, finding five minutes to talk to someone so you know you may still be sane somewhere deep within your heavily burdened soul, and the intense twitching of suppressing the desire to completely bear-slaughter (Here, bear-slaughter means slaughtering someone like a bear, with your bare/bear hands and ferociousness,) one and all for disturbing you with their screaming, talking, loud music, coughing, sneezing, opening of the laundry room door, toilet flushing, heavy breathing, loud page turning, and everything else that is deemed a bear-slaughter worthy nuisance.).

Yes, now I no longer feel those things, yay!

So, I can tell you about them in great and hilarious detail.

First, there was my Literature Final.

It was due Wednesday at high noon. I was as ready as a gunslinger for that final. Everything was done, it only needed to be printed out.

After working all night minus the two hours I went crazy with Jezli, I finally went to bed at 7 Wednesday morning, intending to sleep until 11, print out my final, then go turn it in.

Simple sounding, yes?

Oh no. Very, very no.

I wake-up and go to print everything. Haul my heavy laptop over to the printer, plug it in, get everything going, and I print out all the little papers and letters and literature reviews that went along with my final. Then, there was my final to print. I decided to print two so that I could give one to my mom to read over break. BAD IDEA! Apparently, the two-sided printing wonder doesn't recognize if you have an odd number of pages where the last one shouldn't be printed on, so that got all fucked up. I was like "Fine, asking too much. Just one copy."

The second time around I had forgotten to take out the last odd page of the first attempt, so I was printing on the back of that and then needed to cancel it. That was my fault.

The third time around I am about to hit "Print" and my computer goes "Whoooompsh." "Whoooompsh" is the sound of my computer randomly shutting down because it randomly fucking feels like DESTROYING MY LIFE.

Turn computer back on.

Wait for it to load back up.

Wait four years for Microsoft word to start.

It's now 11:35.

Wait, wait, wait.

Go.

Runs out of paper.

Fuck.

Scramble under my bed trying to get more paper. Open up tightly sealed plastic thingamabob around the paper.

Cut myself.

Jam paper into printer without getting blood on it.

Fix paper jam.

Finish print. Throw on sweater with oil stains all over it because it is the first thing I can find on the ground. It's not exactly the first thing I find on the ground because there is a lot on the ground.

Put everything into neat little manilla envelope.

Flip-flops. Keys.

11:49.

I need to get to the end of Warren Mall from my Muir Apartment in under 11 minutes.

FUCK GO FUCK!

GO FUCK GO!

I swiftly walk as fast as I can out my apartment, through the horror movie tunnel that was once the sweet way to Sierra Summit, up to Sun God.

Now let me tell you about how I look.

I have not showered in a few days. My hair looks about the same as someone who has lived in a cave for 25 years and forgot a brush. I have no make-up and my face has taken on a rather zitty look. I am wearing basketball shorts with my leg hair definitely grown to bear status. I'm wearing a olive oil stained sweater in 100 degree weather. And nice leather flip-flops.

I look like the fucking epitome of staying-up-all-night-studying-for-finals-turning-this-in-in-the-last-minute-why-the-fuck-do-I-do-this-to-myself.

And that is when I come across a group of perky, young, excited-for-college tour group.

Why, why, WHY FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY would you take a college tour during F.I.N.A.L.S. week?!?

Do you want the worst impression of college life ever?

Do you want to see kids twitching and freaking out and looking like cave-bears??

DO YOU WANT TO DIE???

So there I am dodging my way around the tour groups thinking "You're next, innocent, ignorant, mofos! JUST YOU FUCKING WAIT!" and I realize I have only like 5 minutes left to get to the Lit building and at Treasure Island I just start sprinting.

I am running like a gazelle through campus. Actually probably not a gazelle, more like a rhino. I am sweating like a whore in church in my olive oil stained sweater, my flip-flops are clacking all over the concrete, and my leg hair is not helping with aerodynamics. And I am the only person running in sight, so I'm quite a spectacle for those around me. Such a spectacle, that you don't even need to see me to know I'm there. I'm running along the sidewalk and there is these two guys taking their sweet time up ahead of me and I'm planning my detour around them far in advance to make the transition as smooth as possible. What did they do?

They got off the sidewalk without even needing to look back and sweetly called to me "Good luck on finals."

Whoever you are, cute and nice white boys, I love you. (I say white, not to promote racism in any way, but that pretty much narrows down the UCSD male population in case they do ever read this.)

I called back "Thank you" and kept running. I get in to the building, find the office, it's 11:58

AND THERE'S A FUCKING LINE.

And this girl in front is like this...

(sorry the words are off. have no idea how to fix that. anyone?)

I was going to BEAR-SLAUGHTER HER! Finally she sits down and the guy in front gives the man behind the counter his paper. "It goes in Nikolai's box." He stamps and with all the rapidity of a turtle dying of cancer puts it in Nikolai's box. Then he comes back to the counter and takes the paper of the next guy. "It goes in Nikolai's box," he says.

THIS IS MY GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY.

I throw my manilla envelope up there and shout "THIS GOES IN NIKOLAI'S BOX TOO!" He timestamps it and they both get put in there. I am safe. It was all worth it. Every inconvenience perfectly acceptable.

Then I realize I have to walk back across campus the way that I am, this time without the very important looking manilla envelope. Now I just look like a deranged-hobo-cave-bear and I have to pass more groups of tour groups. This is what hell is, isn't it?

As I passed them, I gave them all a mental middle finger and an actually executed mutant scary face that probably matched my deranged-hobo-cave-bear appearance.

And that was Part One of the most interesting parts of F.I.N.A.L.S. week. There's more. I want to share something with you, but right now technological failures are preventing me from doing so. So, it'll have to wait. This is long enough anyway. Enjoy.