Well, it’s that time of the year again. Yep, hell. For those unaware, that means finals time. OK, so you’ve got seven chapters in psychology to read, three Russian papers due, an art project supposed to have been started five months ago and a physics experiment to conduct. At least it couldn’t get much worse.

With this in mind, there are a few things you should remember to help you get through the weekend. First of all, with the coming of Christmas, remember it would be in incredibly poor taste to murder a loud roommate or neighbor.

Before you think of resorting to this tactic, try some other tension relievers that are a little less dramatic.

Spitballs. Yep, that’s right—spitballs. These work wonders to get the message across to your roomie that perhaps tapping their pencil against a notebook to the beat of Metallica’s greatest hits is mildly annoying. Now, if by chance you live with a slightly psychotic roommate, then this might not be the best approach.

In the aforementioned case, a meak “excuse me” or “pardon” probably won’t do. Maybe an air horn would get the picture across. Make sure before you put your life on the line you’ve mapped out an escape route and five of your largest friends to intercept your roommate.

Both of the above activities would help to subside any built-up energy caused by 24 hours of reading, ‘riting or ‘rithmatic, but if that isn’t enough, you might alter the spitwad theme by using other projectiles every hour or so.

I suggest using food, since in most cases it’s soft and tasty, unless of course it is from the residence hall cafeterias because who knows what that food would do to bare flesh.

Another soft, tossable, tension reliever, though in some cases a little more lethal, is dirty clothes. OK, so it’s gross, but when you get bombarded with various missiles, are you going to look before you grab something to throw? Besides, I can almost guarantee day-old socks in the face will slow an attack, if only momentarily.

Other relaxants might be a nice stroll down Lucinda Avenue in the nude or a few barbaric yulps. If you’re lucky it might snow, in which case I highly recommend you take time out to throw a few snowballs or participate in some snowy sexual activities. Either would do nicely to cure a stressed out college student.

One advantage to finals time is many of the common worries of university society are defunct. Fashion, for instance, is not a consideration since it consists of neon orange and brown plaid flannel shirts and purple sweatpants. Good hygiene consists of one shower for the entire week as long as the ritualistic baseball cap is worn to hide hairdos from hell. Then again, I can think of some people who should hide their hellish hair on a daily basis, you know the ones with five-foot high hair resembling rhinoceri.

Enough all ready, just remember when you think you’re out of time and feel panicky, take a deep breath and realize one test will not ruin your college career.

A good friend of mine once said “Time is a concept used to monitor what we never have the time for.” No, maybe “Time is concept that limits.” No, “Time is a concept?” Wait I got it! “Time is.” Good Luck!