'Tis the season

What was that Smashing Pumpkins song title again? “The End is the Beginning is the End”? When it first came out I used to dance around my room, in the ‘slutty’ clothes that only a 15 yr old could own (glitter mini-skirts, sequined tops that barely contained my already ample bosom, lotsa black make-up, etc.), and pretend I was in Billy Corgan’s music video.

Oh how times don’t change ten years later.

I’m doing the same thing instead my shirt is Moschino, I’m wearing Judith Lieber shoes, and am dancing to Maneater by Nelly Furtado thinking of all the boys hearts I could be out breaking if I wasn’t in this intellectual prison called my room—but at least I have my down comforter, unlike Paris. Procrastination couldn’t be more fun, especially since I sit and stare at my newly visible cheekbones—thank you redbull and Marlboro lights fast.

It’s finals time at Oxford and I forgot just how much being a student really sucks. Oh sure the lure of making your own schedule and discussing “intellectual” ideas for seven months is supposed to make it all worth it, but here I am, at the tail end of my time here and I have to say: I miss the fucking working world. The “fun” I’ve had for the past few months isn’t making up for the hell that I am currently experiencing—the anxiety brought about my excessive use of legal stimulants, the fears of failure, and of course the rampant insomnia that has completely thrown off my sleep schedule.The stress that I am going through right now trying to memorize dates and authors and who argued what and who counter-argued the other does not make up for the endless drunken nights, the sleeping until noon and all the “benefits” that being a student is supposed to grant you.

Without easy access to prescription amphetamines like back in the good ‘ol USA, I am stuck sucking down two red bulls every 12 hours, smoking a pack a day, and thinking that my best just isn’t going to be good enough. Like religious Jews who repent for their sins on Yom Kippur, not bathing and fasting in atonement for their sins, I have adopted the same idea. No showers and no real food until my last exam next Wed. Granted there is no real reason other than I would rather spend the time studying, so showers during this time become optional—I’m already on day three and I have to admit, I like the odor that I’m emitting.

But there is something about this time of year that brings all of us who are going through it closer, with the late night cigarette breaks, the finally honest chats about how we are really feeling—nobody has energy to put on the front that has characterized so many of my relationships here.

So, I’m going to finish my two liter bottle of Diet Coke, crack open the books, and pray that my penance of no sleep, not showering, subsisting on the chemicals of taurine, nicotine, and caffeine will be enough of an offer to the exam Gods.

And yes I know this isn’t brilliant writing, but at least I’ve started back up again. And its finals time, have a fucking heart.