Midterms are awesome for several reasons. Ok, maybe not awesome but kinda cool. Well, not kinda cool, but decent. Ha, no no, not decent. My bad team, it’s much more like terrible.

Spring break is on the horizon. The weather is beautiful, the sun is shining, and I’m stuck in the same spot I’ve been for 4 months; Emotionally depressed and geographically indoors.

However, if I want to wear the funny hat and black dress in May, I need to pass my exams. Like many of you, I have a ritual before every exam. I’ll tell you mine in a minute, I know you’re dying to read it. So first, here’s what I believe to be the generally accepted midterm ritual.

What you’ll need: Redbull, caffeine pills and coffee. Then throw in some ADHD medication, which I’m sure you have a prescription for. That way you can tweak out and clean your entire house for fear your heart will explode. Pandora is helpful so you can listen to music while you pretend to be reading. Of course you need textbooks which you took out of the protective plastic wrapping five minutes ago and just now started to read. Finally you’ll need to borrow notes your friends took in the class because you didn’t make it in as often as you would have liked thus far.

Got everything? Good. Now the trick is to learn a semester’s worth of material in five hours or you have to convince mom and dad how it was entirely the professor’s fault. This is nearly an impossible task and cannot be completed without Divine Intervention, which brings us to my personal midterm ritual.

Usually I start with sacrificing a live chicken to the test god “Scantron” and reciting his favorite prayer. It goes like this: “Our test grades, who art in academia, high be your scores. Thy midterms come, thy studying be done at Northern as it is in Founders Memorial Library. Give us this day our 4.0, and forgive our absences, as we forgive those who grade short answer questions too harshly. Lead us not into StarBusters, and keep us from failing.”

Afterward, I walk over to Altgeld and gently massage the bricks one by one. As I make my way around the building, I make soothing guttural noises under my breath as though it were a lover. I repeat this process with the FML, the student center and my textbooks.

Then I check Facebook, go on YouTube and StumbleUpon for a bit before yawning and stretching unnecessarily big while rubbing my stomach. Then I go to bed, usually forgetting to set my alarm and waking up late. I’ll end up at the exam wearing yesterday’s clothes and borrowing a pencil from someone. Confident that I have pleased the great bubbly one known as “Scantron”, I’m sure I’ll be fine. Good luck on your exams everyone.