Elizabeth Alexion/Staff Photographer
For many students, Spring Break can’t come soon enough. Midterms are upon us, and sometimes it can feel like there’s no possibility of escape. Never fear: The Argus is here to rescue you from your responsibilities. Here are some viable alternatives to working yourself into a burnt-out stupor.
1. Pad your resume. If you are going to procrastinate, you might as well do something useful, so why not learn a new computer program such as Photoshop or Final Cut Pro? Employers love that stuff, so you are basically planning for your future. Besides, your future boss doesn’t need to know that your Photoshop “skills” refer to your mastery of Photoshopping kitten heads onto pictures of your friends.
2. Learn a new instrument. If you want to put this on your resume too, go right ahead, but let’s be honest: everyone who learns a new instrument does it to be sexy. Guitars are seriously sexy. If the idea of six strings is overwhelming, there’s always the ukulele. If strings are too confusing, there is always the giant xylophone, called a vibraphone, in one of the practice rooms in the music studios. If you just want to bang something repeatedly with a mallet but the idea of the vibraphone is too scary, you could try the triangle. Though a lot less sexy than the guitar, it is still an instrument, and it is still way more fun than studying for that physics test you have next Wednesday.
3. Do a taste test of everything from Pi Café. They recently got some snazzy new drinks (Snow White Latte anyone?), which deserve a proper occasion for tasting. Get a bunch of friends together and head over to the Science Library to “study.” After five minutes of pretending to review your notes, declare that it is time for a study break. Walk over to Pi with your friends, hand the person behind the cash register all of your Wes IDs, and in all seriousness say, “I’ll have one of everything, please!” You might go crazy from all the caffeine, but it will be totally worth it. It will also be a great story to tell the three other people in the 24-hour study lounge when you are still awake at 4 a.m.
4. Spread the joy you’re not quite feeling. Write motivational messages on sticky notes and hand them out in the library. Get creative with Sharpies and Post-it notes and write things such as, “You can do it!” and “It’s almost spring break!” Take them to Olin and SciLi and stick them to random people. Feel free to don a ridiculous costume as an added bonus. If anyone asks what you are doing just stare at them blankly and walk away. Cryptic, slightly creepy motivation is always the best.
5. Become a polyglot. Don’t even lie: you have always been slightly intrigued by those Rosetta Stone commercials. So why not learn a new language? This one is also great resume fodder; every employer likes a bilingual employee. If you want to be ambitious, go for one of the less commonly taught languages such as Swahili or Vietnamese. If you are really ambitious, you could learn three new languages; add that to the one you presumably already speak and congrats! You are a polyglot. Seriously, who doesn’t want to self-identify as a polyglot?
6. Do “yoga.” After way too many hours in Olin, roll out a yoga mat and get your Namaste on. If you can’t bring yourself to focus appropriately, lie on the mat in the fetal position and roll around while making strange noises that are somewhere between crying and a hyena cackle. This position is called “The College Student.”
7. Post-game the Oscars by watching all of the movies that were nominated for best picture. Whether you want to watch Anne Hathaway sing beautifully and then die or you totally have a crush on Jennifer Lawrence, at least one of the great films nominated this year will strike your fancy. You can get your Wes pride on with “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” watch a bunch of digitally created animals swim around in the ocean in “Life of Pi,” or marathon “Lincoln” and “Django Unchained” and count it as studying for history class. After watching Best Picture winner “Argo,” you can either squeal with joy or disappointment and then write a blog post about your feelings. Congrats: you’ve successfully wasted an entire day.
8. Get a new piercing, tattoo, or hipster haircut. You’ve totally been thinking about getting your lip pierced, tattooing a giraffe on your butt, or shaving off half of your hair. Midterms are the best time to take the plunge; when you go home for spring break and your parents question what the heck you did to yourself, you can blame it on the work craze. Plus, it gives you a couple of months to figure out what you are going to do about hiding your piercing, tattoo, or shaved head for that internship you just scored. Even better, the place you go to get your new look will probably be a good distance away, so it will be a nice long study break—all in the name of self-expression.
9. Primal Scream. Everywhere. All the time. Okay, so it isn’t finals yet, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t going completely crazy with stress. Quick fix: stand on the steps of Olin and scream your head off. Stand in the middle of Usdan and scream your head off. Run around the top floor of SciLi screaming your head off. Mudslide down Foss Hill screaming your head off. You get the point: find a place, scream your head off. Stress relieved.
10. Make a list of 10 things to do instead of studying for midterms. What are you talking about? I don’t have a paper to write or a test to study for…I’m going to go do “The College Student” now.