The advent of midterms, like the antithesis of a holiday, is upon us. Inspiring chest-tightening dread, rather than festive cheer, it is the reality chasing you down until the very last minute like a wanted fugitive that you can only escape once you take off in your Spring Break flight. With this, comes the necessity of having to find a study spot and lock in. Well, given that you have spent the whole of the semester decisively locked out, you must now get in somewhere and stay there until everything is done.
Even though the stress of midterms endows you with the sense of world-ending doom and gloom, you soon learn that you are not the only individual — let alone the thousandth — who is suffering with this feeling. You will soon discover that finding this study spot to academically redeem yourself will be harder to find than a time slot to meet with your advisor to discuss dropping the class.
Upon making the long-drawn journey to the library, stuffing your backpack with all of your chargers, a handful of 20 oz Redbulls, and Qdoba bag bursting at the seams, you are the very paragon of someone deserving of a study spot. Even though you have not given this semester your best go, you still have gone to the library consistently each week. The people at the front desk could probably pick your studious face out in a lineup with a couple good guesses. You have the perfect spot in mind. It’s where you always go, and even if you don’t get any work done while you’re there, it acts as a kind of second home. You’ve spent so much time at its desk that you consider decorating it as your own personal cubicle the next time you camp out at it.
But, don’t start ripping off pieces of washy tape just yet, because as you advance down the hall towards your beloved study spot, you start to realize what is going on. Down the rows of desks that usually no creature is stirring at, not even a mouse, you start to see every seat in your range of vision has a student hunched over their work at it. Suddenly now you’re not the only person who knows a place … in fact, it is the place. Panic beginning to thrum in your heart, you think that your very own seat could not possibly have been compromised. Assuming a light jog, your Qdoba bag rustling and rendering you an auditory nuisance, you hasten your way to your seat. And what do you know?! The guy who was just working there is packing up and about to make it available for you.
As he slips his computer into his backpack at a pace which would make even a turtle exclaim, “You’ve actually got to be kidding me,” somebody else comes around the bend. Their eyes are widened, zeroed in on the target of your dependable study spot. You shoot them a challenging glance. Seeing you, they throw back their head in laughter. This is not their first game of academic musical chairs, and you are in deep trouble. As soon as the guy with the severely sluggish motor skills shuffles off, leaving the seat open, the other person executes a seamless forward dive onto it. And after the dust cloud of their wake clears, you see that they have already finished halfway with their dissertation in that time. Sending you packing for another venue, you shrug it off, not allowing the wind to be fully taken out of your study sails yet (if those sails even exist…).
Walking down the street, you figure that perhaps a coffee shop may be the solution. Yes, save your Redbull supply for a rainy day, and instead opt for a cafe drink to congratulate yourself for trudging through the trenches of these trying times. Upon entering the nearby cafe, you are confronted with the same sight. Figuring that before you get your drink, you should secure a spot, you travel upstairs, thinking that something has got to give.
Upstairs, every single table is full. One is occupied by two corporate workers who have long forgotten the salad days of midterms and would probably equate it to being as trivial as losing one’s teeth, talking loudly and with sweeping gesticulations about crazy political takes that would get them cancelled. Another is merged with a different table in order to accommodate a band of frantic group project members. On the verge of tears and needing to be checked into anger management, and having long plastered off their drinks, they present a despairing portrait of the effects of midterms. Their conjoined table mass appears like a fort made in childhood, and doing a backflip over it, you adeptly circumvent the obstacle.
The last table standing before you stokes a newfound sense of hope. Seated at the table is your professor for that one class where even though you do not contribute, they are forced to know your name because there are only 10 students. Finally! You knew there had to be something! “Professor!” You holler out. As you wait for them to hear your bid for alliance, you observe a spread of Bluebooks splayed before them. Spilling onto the floor and some crumpled, you see that they have also used some as napkins to dab their mouth while consuming their drink.
As though a deer caught in headlights, your professor recoils. “Jimmy! Wha-what are you doing here?!” Explaining you were trying to find a study spot, and even before you ask if you can join a seat at their academic and cafe roundtable, they bark, “NO! You are on your own, Jimmy. Every academic for themselves. I was here first. Find a different table, you CAN’T sit here. Also, terrible essay, do better!” You realize your essay was one of the Bluebooks that they used as a napkin. They hurl your napkin, I mean essay, at you. Well, at least it had some utility.
Head hung low, you despondently head home, figuring that unless they did away with the Quartering Act, that your room will still be available for you to study in. Settling into bed, your body, exhausted from all of the effort of trying to locate a study spot, begins to shut down. You decide you also deserve a break after this whole ordeal, turning on Love Is Blind as a bit of entertainment before you lock in. Pulling up the covers, you reason that its comfort will lull you into a state optimal for studying.
When you wake up the next morning in a cold sweat now having only three hours left before your exam, you know one thing for certain: No, not anything appearing on the exam. Not even the date to put at the top or where your #2 pencils are and whether or not they are sharpened. The only certainty you have is that just like every midterm season — as though subscribing to a holiday tradition — you will have ultimately spent more time looking for a study spot than actually studying. Perhaps you knew this throughout the whole shebang, and distracting yourself from actually doing the work was your intention all along.
