Finals Shenanigans Remembered: Part 2, We Are Champions

Look! I found a chalkboard!

Well, I actually didn't find it. This was in the classroom where I found one of my friends right after I finished my take-home final a few Tuesdays ago. 

How often do you see chalkboards anymore? This was even a pretty modern building. The majority of the classrooms has whiteboards, but there are a few study rooms that have chalkboards like these.

My friend was doing practice math problems for one of her business classes. She was being a very responsible student and practicing for her final exam the next day.

I took over a third of her chalkboard to do that. I had just finished that take-home final, man. Before that, I took a final exam about women in Ancient Greece. Before that, I was studying women in Ancient Greece. Before that, I slept for a few hours. Before that, I was studying historical women who didn't live in Ancient Greece. Before that, I was trying to write a take-home final. Before that, I was panicking about my GPA. Before that, I was panicking in general. Before that, I was trying to write a take-home final. Before that, I was studying women in Ancient Greece. 

I'd been running on caffeine and the fear of failure. There's a certain euphoria that comes with final exams being lifted off your shoulders at last. Sometimes it manifests in the form of giddy and slightly nonsensical messages doodled on a rare chalkboard in a business building on a college campus.

I have to say again: I have nothing against John Keats. Nothing at all. The guy was great and wrote great poetry.

Finals Shenanigans Remembered: Part 1, Keats out of Context

Finals are done! They've been done for over a week now.

I really didn't get up to a whole lot of shenanigans this semester. At least, not any as creative as my usual final exam shenanigans. They were mostly boring. Like Facebook, YouTube, whatever.

I also actually didn't have a lot of time to get up to shenanigans. I had only one final exam, which was on Tuesday of finals week, and then I had a take-home final essay-ish-thing that was due the same day. I also had a creative writing assignment due, but... it was due "sometime during finals week." I love creative writing teachers.

So I didn't have a lot of time for creative shenanigans, but I did do a few silly things. And I will post them now! And over the next few days, as I think of them.

Here's a sketchy cartoon thingy of me quoting Keats out of context:

That's how I felt while studying and writing. I actually said this out loud at least once. I've really got nothing against John Keats. In fact, I enjoyed studying a great deal of his poetry this semester. I just didn't really appreciate writing papers and essays and stuff like that. I never do. I would probably like it all a bit more if I could learn to write papers before the last minute, but... yeah.

I haven't drawn much on my tablet in a while. I'm trying to get back in the swing of it. I'll be practicing on it, not necessarily doing finished cartoons. I might post a few of the sketches up here for the fun of it.

Dr. Wikipedia: Spring Finals Shenanigans Part 5

Spring Finals Shenanigans Part 5

I'm making flashcards for my Intro to Theatre final (and this time I have enough, so I won't have to color any black and write over them like last time), and I just wrote out a card for the term "Rock Musical," which my teacher has defined as "a musical theatre work with rock music."

I realized that I didn't have an example of a rock musical written down, and the term wasn't in the glossary of my textbook, so I hopped onto Wikipedia to find a good example.

What's the first sentence on the Rock musical Wikipedia page?

"A rock musical is a musical theatre work with rock music."

Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_musical

It looks like my teacher pulled his definition straight from Wikipedia.

I could be wrong, of course. My teacher could have pulled that definition from one of the sources listed at the end of the article. He could have found the exact same phrase on a different website or in a book. But it certainly looks suspicious.

Of course, there's nothing inherently wrong with Wikipedia. I love Wikipedia. It's just that professors usually bring the hammer down on you if you dare to cite it as a source for anything. It's not exactly the most reliable source of information.

Okay, man. Getting through grad school. Teaching a lecture about musicals you like and some of the info isn't in the book. Using Wikipedia 'cause ain't nobody got time for research. I can dig it.

This falls into the category of shenanigans partly because my teacher is probably teaching us something right off of Wikipedia and partly because I'm poking fun at him for it.

"Let it Go" Parody: Spring Finals Shenanigans Part 4

Spring Shenanigans Part 4

I'm still supposed to be studying for my Victorian lit final. But I've been concocting a parody of "Let it Go" from Frozen for a few days, and I just couldn't hold it back anymore. So I let it go and posted it on Facebook for the world to see. I'll let you see it, too!


The stars are bright over campus tonight, not a student to be seen...
The College of Desperation, and it looks like-- I'm the dean.
My soul is crying 'cause my GPA has died.
Couldn't keep it up. Heaven knows I tried...
Don't let them see I failed the test!
I'm that good kid who should have done her best.
If I'd done more, could I have passed?
It's in the past...
Let it go. Let it go!
Can't think of it anymore.
Let it go! Let it go!
Time to open a new door.
Here I stand
At a brand new day.
Let the grades fall down...
We'll all get a summer break anyway.

I must admit, if I spent more time studying and less time parodying, I probably wouldn't have to sing songs about failing finals.

Not that I've failed a final... yet. Guess I'd better get hot on this Victorian lit.

Procrasti-fate-ing: Spring Finals Shenanigans Part 3

Spring Finals Shenanigans Part 3

I didn't have a final today, so I spent the day in a casual manner. I went to meet some friends for an early lunch, and then I went to buy toilet paper. I thought perhaps I could find it at the little shop inside the dining hall nearest my dorm, but I wasn't entirely sure. I ended up going there anyway, in the hopes that I could spare myself a walk to Publix.

They don't sell toilet paper there.

Bummed out, I left and started heading towards Publix. However, before I could get very far, I ran into a friend from my Ireland trip last summer that I never get to see anymore because he graduated and he never hangs out on campus.

Had I gone straight to Publix, I never would have run into him. It was fate.

FATE.

And you can't ignore fate. So instead of going back to my dorm to study for my Victorian lit final and do laundry and other important stuff, I jumped into my friend's car and we went to a German bakery to eat pastries and talk about life.

I hope fate wants me to pass my final tomorrow.

Power Hour(s): Spring Finals Shenanigans Part 2... or not?

Spring Finals Shenanigans Part 2

I worked on my microanalysis for over ten hours straight in the library yesterday and I did not get up to a single shenanigan.

Unless you count a little Facebooking, a little texting, a little staring at the weather radar and trying to decipher if there actually was going to be a tornado again. (There wasn't.)

Like, seriously, I didn't really do anything goofy or shenanigan-like. For ten hours. And I was even there with my friends.

Ten hours.

I'm not sure whether to be proud or disappointed.

I mean, if I was there for ten hours, then obviously I really needed to get some work done, so I really didn't have time to goof off and whatnot...

You know, it's nice that I could actually sit down and work without throwing a mental temper tantrum for once. I don't know if it was the right time, the right place, the right pressure, or what, but for once, I didn't have that "I DON'T WANNA!!!" voice screaming in my head.

So... no big shenanigans from my part, but I heard there were plenty of shenanigans happening downstairs on the first floor. Since the library has not one but two basements and it was going to be open all night for finals week anyway, people were allowed to go there for shelter from the tornado we were afraid would happen. They were allowed to bring their pets. So everybody trying to study on the first floor apparently had to deal with loud children and barking dogs, and they were not happy about it.

Luckily, no tornado happened last night, so everybody was able to go along their merry way.

Flower Power: Spring Finals Shenanigans Part 1

Well... I've started doing weird/silly/crazy shenanigans again. It must be final exams week.

I drew a flower on my knee with gel pens.

I really can't tell you why. It just seemed like a good idea at the time.

My mother always discouraged me from drawing on myself (or at least I feel like she did), so I don't do it that often. Every now and then I get a little crazy.

Hey, for a random knee doodle, it looks pretty cool.

It's probably a good thing I've sent most of my gel pens home already.

As I was drawing the flower on my knee, I considered how weird other people would think I was if they saw it. But I thought- eh! Who's going to see me? I'm in my bedroom and I'm not going anywhere tonight.

While I was typing up this blog post, tornado sirens started going off. I scrambled to my bathroom to scrub the gel pen off so the neighbors wouldn't think I was weird when we all huddled out in the hallway together.

We're okay. A tornado touched down in the city, but it didn't hit campus. And nobody saw me with a gel pen flower on my knee, so there's that.

Fingers of Fury

Last night I was writing a paper. Just trucking away. I'd already gone through my distracted hour or so and I was back on track. Then, in the middle of a paragraph, I just went insane and started typing random letters insanely fast. Think button-mashing. It was a little bit cathartic, to be honest. It made me feel like some kind of lightning-fast computer genius on a TV show. How do those people type so fast?

I decided to give it a try. Since the results were so hilarious, I just kept trying. And trying. And trying. And in those wee hours of the morning, I thought it was so funny that I should take a screenshot. So I'm going to share it with you.

As I first began, typing things like "I'm a Little Teapot" and "Jack and Jill Went Up the Hill," I found that my brain couldn't keep up with my insanely fast fingers. A lot of the right letters are present, but often in the wrong order. After trying a few more songs, rhymes, and tongue-twisters, I decided to try my school's fight song, wondering if something I'd sung many times over the last three years would be easier to type quickly. It sort of was. I typed the words of the fight song more accurately- at least accurately enough for spellcheck to recognize them and help me out. 

The most impressive thing about this is the amount of time I spent typing nonsense. Good grief.

$1 Coffee: Finals Shenanigans Part 2

I was sitting with two friends in the computer lab earlier, but they both just left. How rude!

Before they left, we discussed the free hot chocolate and coffee provided by the Honors College for people working in this lab. My friends told me I should prepare cups of coffee for everyone. I agreed, saying that I would deliver cups of coffee to everybody who walked in.

Then one of my friends told me I should sell the coffee and make a profit.

I think that would definitely get me kicked out of the Honors College, but it does sound funny.

A few more ideas like that, and I'll end up on Santa's naughty list. How terrible to go the entire year with good behavior and mess up at the last minute...

Sometimes when I'm writing papers, I get bored and lonely, and I start posting on Facebook every five minutes. I decided that I'm going to post all my random thoughts here instead. I'll keep it going throughout finals week and see what other shenanigans I get up to.

Finals week, man. Anything goes!