A Finals Week Hello

dead week is dead

so long dead week

you won't be missed

Dead week, if you are unfamiliar with the term, is the week during a semester right before finals week. Some schools cancel classes and use the whole week as a study time for finals. Other schools have class but put a “nothing can be due this week” rule... APU does not do either of these and while normally it doesn’t even phase me, this semester was killer. I cannot even count how many assignments and papers I had to do, not to mention the long-term projects and presentations that were due this week alone. This year, dead week happened to fall right after Thanksgiving weekend. Usually we have two weeks before finals after Thanksgiving, but this year we only had one. I ended up staying at school over Thanksgiving weekend to work on all the stuff that was due this week. I pulled 2 all-nighters in 4 days, putting me at two 40-hour days and not nearly enough sleep. On top of all this craziness, the School of Music’s annual Celebrate Christmas Concert is this weekend, so on top of the normal rehearsals for the choirs I am in (and in charge of), we had the mass dress rehearsal on Thursday night and performance Friday night (after one of my all-nighters). While they cannot help the fact that the “Celebrate Christmas Weekend” fell at the end of dead week this year, and while it was fun to perform, it still felt like an added torture after the lack of sleep and stressful week.

Thankfully, this week is over! I was able to (by God’s grace and the prayers and support of friends and family) complete all of my assignments and even a few extra-credit assignments. I slept for 14 hours last night and have taken it somewhat easy today. I have more assignments and papers to do for next week, finals to study for, and another Celebrate Christmas performance tomorrow... but at least the worst is over and the rest is rapidly coming to an end. So rest in peace dead week, until next semester.