Just as I've done during every Thanksgiving break since the dawn of time, I spent the week ignoring the seven books I brought home, never letting more than 20 minutes pass without eating something and watching Charlie Brown.
Watching the trials and tribulations of this Peanuts character has proven a particularly depressing tradition. Poor kid. Every year I watch hoping that Chuck will get to kick that football or that he will finally find some new friends. I keep wishing that he will talk to that little red-headed girl that he's been stalking for 46 years or that maybe his teacher will finally get help for her severe speech impediment. But every year I am disappointed. Someone once told me that I am going to continue to be disappointed because it's a tape and the ending never changes. Ha, ridiculous! Some people just won't accept the truth.
After emerging from my deep Schultz-related depression, I mustered up the strength to go shopping. It was tough, believe me. But I took one for the team. And by 'team' I mean 'mall,' and by 'one' I meant 'a credit card.' Don't be mistaken. I did not go out during Black Friday. I know, I can hardly be considered human, but I figured I could still find sales without the chance of being trampled. I was wrong. It seems that you must risk death for bargains. A lesson for the kids: discounted merch is worth more than your life.
Having been betrayed by the mall and disgusted by rainy Maryland, I decide to make my way back to Charlottesville, where it's sunny every day. The drive was as it always is: lots of hooligans confused about the rules, misplaced stoplights, tricky cops. But there was a subtle difference, something I had not detected while driving away. A smell in the air, hard to identify at first, but growing stronger as I neared central grounds. Ah yes, fear. It is finals season. That time of year when you realize that you haven't done any work all semester and now need to ace your tests to pull of a low B. The time when you decide sweatpants are acceptable everyday of the week in every situation, when you have to sit in the library all night reading five weeks of material just to make an outline, when you realize that your social life is over until the conclusion of the semester. It is indeed the most wonderful time of the year.
I thought there were at least two weeks separating the feast of endless turkey leftovers and the horrible agony of studying for finals. But I was very wrong, and accepting the fact that I cannot read a calendar, I have moved on to planning my next three weeks at the library.
While spending the night in Clemons, I devised a foolproof plan. If I just stay up from Dec. 8 until 17, sleeping a maximum of only 10 hours during that nine-day period, I've got this whole finals thing in the bag. I will have ample time to study absolutely everything that I need to.
The longest an individual has ever gone without sleep is 11 days. All I'm asking for is nine days, complete with 10 whole hours of sleep. I have currently been awake for 40 hours, so what's 166 more? I could do it right now even. I won't, because that would really mess up my plans, but I could!
Maybe you're all, "Why don't you just sleep, and then study all day?" Well, I don't get much studying done in the daytime - too many distractions. "Couldn't you just study at night and then sleep during the day?" Oh my goodness, no. That question is absurd. Sleeping in the daytime would completely mess up my sleep pattern.
Feel free to use this plan for a successful finals season. But if you take advantage of the above and halfway through, you start hallucinating, just remember that sleep is not as important as "science" would have you believe and that I've met some medical students, so I definitely know what I'm talking about.
Belle's column runs biweekly Thursdays. She can be reached at b.gamble@cavalierdaily.com.
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