Back to December

Hello All!

It's that time of year again! Yep, it's December and that means that finals are upon us. Cue the panic. For most, finals entail long nights of studying, writing papers, crying, stress-eating, coffee, and frantically trying to cram in those last assignments you forgot to do or the extra credit you need to bump your grade from a B to an A. There's no question about it, finals are stressful.

For me, this semester's finals means six new papers to write (one of which is 7 pages and another is 8-10 pages), two old papers to revise, lots of forum questions to answer, three actual exams to study for, two movies to watch, and a ton of research to do. Bleh. Needless to say, I've got a busy schedule and a hectic week ahead of me. I've already pulled more all-nighters in the last week than I have in my entire college career. Friday night I worked until 7 am on Saturday, slept for three hours then woke up and did more work until 5:30 this morning. My Sunday wasn't exactly as productive as my last two days (i.e. I veg'd out on the couch and watched football until 3:00 this afternoon before grabbing some Starbucks and working on yet another paper), but all in all I'd say I had a pretty successful weekend, homework wise. It's all about crossing things off the list and making sure everything gets done.

Of course, that doesn't mean we can neglect our health. Like I said in my last post, I tend to eat very little when I'm busy and stressed out, but what I do eat, is never good for me. Because I've been running on hardly any sleep for the last two days, my body has been craving sugary and fatty foods, like muffins and ice-cream, which admittedly I've been giving in to. Although, I did manage to fit in a workout today. This stationary bike routine from Self magazine is so great! I really worked up a sweat and felt so good afterwards. The best part? It only takes a half an hour. That's time anyone can fit in to a busy schedule! ;)

I'm not going to go on a long rant about how to snack healthily when studying or how to fit in a workout or eat well with a super stressful, crazy-busy schedule, but I will say this: for the sake of your own sanity, PLEASE TAKE BRAIN BREAKS! Sitting around for hours and hours doing nothing but homework and studying is just asking for a mental breakdown. So do yourself a favor, and give your brain the occasional break. For every hour that you study, give yourself 5-10 minutes of time to relax. Make yourself a cup o' joe; take a power nap; walk around for a bit; do some burpees. No matter what you do in those 5-10 minutes, DON'T think about finals. Just relax your mind. Anywho, you'll all have to bear with me as posts will be, if existent, sparse and very short until finals are over. Hopefully you guys have better finals schedules than I do!

Good luck to all and remember to just keep swimming! :)