Lyons: The perks of surviving finals week

Finals got you down? These sometimes-cumulative, behemoth exams are the bane of every college… Finals got you down? These sometimes-cumulative, behemoth exams are the bane of every college student’s life. More importantly, they’re a pesky barrier between finishing your semester and going home to awkward interactions with your former high school friends.

The following is a list of consolations that will hopefully inspire you to keep struggling through final exams.

Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/New Years is looming

I don’t know about you, but nothing motivates me like positive reinforcement. Regardless of whether I get three or four F’s in one semester, Santa still always brings me presents rather than coal. If you’re disappointed that you failed calculus for the third time, think about how good you’re going to look in that new cheetah-print fleece jacket and matching Uggs. Still want to be a doctor even though you just failed bio I for the second time? By the time the holidays are over and you’ve watched your Blu-ray version of “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” six times, you won’t even remember those silly aspirations.

If material possessions don’t improve your spirits, just make a New Year’s resolution to pay more attention to your studies next year. Nothing says “I’m a person who has a serious need for closure as I am desperate to believe things are going to be different next year” than a New Year’s resolution.

This is the Last Exam You Will Have to Take for _____ Class

If you truly despise a class, take comfort in the knowledge that you will never have to take another exam or write another paper for it again. Sure, that art class might have dragged on longer than the “Twilight” series, but at least you’ll never have to subject yourself to writing critiques of Renoir again. If worse comes to worse and you actually fail the final exam, try burning the textbook; it’ll bring satisfaction, not be dramatic at all and demonstrate more restraint than setting the classroom on fire.

You Go Home and Catch Up on TV

One of the worst things about final exams is that they get in the way of your avid television-watching schedule. Once they’re done, though, you can go home and spend days catching up on everything you’ve missed. If you’re enough of a television geek, you can spend one day laughing at sitcoms like “The Office” or “30 Rock,” one day being edgy and dark watching dramas like “The Walking Dead” or “Dexter” and one day affirming that no matter how badly you screwed up your GPA, your life will be better than those of the reality TV stars on “Teen Mom,” “Made” and “I Used to be Fat.” Vanity and materialism are sure-fire ways of making anyone feel better after taking a soul-crushing exam.

You Can Eat Food Unique to Your Hometown

One of the most difficult adjustments for Philadelphia-based students to make is the lack of familiar restaurants. We envy you lucky Pittsburghers who are still surrounded by your precious Primanti sandwiches. We’ve had a long semester trying to pretend that Sheetz is the same as Wawa and a Pittsburgh “cheesesteak” is a viable alternative to Pat’s or Geno’s. So, Philly natives, keep hitting the books knowing that soft pretzels and Chickie’s and Pete’s crab fries are just around the corner!

Visit Familiar Places You Know and Love/Re-experience Old Hobbies

Whether it’s at your grandmother’s house or an old playground, feelings of nostalgia can help you relax after a stressful two weeks of final exams. Though the stress and tension of studying might seem overwhelming right now, take comfort in the fact that those negative feelings will be a thing of the past once you regress back to childhood dreams. If you’re in a state of pure panic after failing three finals in three days, try going home and playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time or Final Fantasy VII for six hours in a row. I dare you to still be sad and apprehensive about grades after “pwning n00bs” on Halo 2’s multiplayer via Xbox Live.

Of course, the important thing is to keep everything in perspective. While finals seem awful, unfair and stressful, bear in mind that being an undergrad at Pitt is infinitely better and less stressful than being in the graduate, law or medical school you plan on eventually attending (provided you pass these final exams).

So suck it up and endure these two weeks of hell with the knowledge that the next semester could be the best four months of your life.