Like that one shot you take that suddenly makes you realize that you've been drinking for hours and now you can barely speak and ohcrap where's your credit card and, more importantly, where the balls are you, finals are suddenly, impossibly upon us again.
Last semester, my exams were the four PANICs. This year, there's no sense of panic, not really. They're more like hurdles strewn about haphazardly, and must be bested as I run gamely towards freedom.
They could be devastating hurdles, that's for sure. But they shouldn't be too bad. I see these finals like gusts of wind coming at my ship, and all I have to do is not turn my ship right into them and sink myself. I could be OK. Or it could be The Perfect Storm and there I went, Charlie from Ohio, lost at sea. In ten days, this will all be over, provided the winds (and swine flu) aren't fatal.
In a matter of minutes, I will be picking up a take-home exam for Constitutional Interpretation. I will attempt to show that I learned something -- anything -- from this class. Given that it was more boring than church, this will be a difficult task.
I am actually interested to see how this plays out. I haven't written a paper in over two years. Two and a half really, since my second semester senior year consisted of wines, creative writing, and introduction to rock 'n' roll, a senioritis schedule if you ever saw one.
Writing columns and a blog, of course, is not substitute for the kind of in-depth research, trenchant analysis, and insightful and original conclusions that I'm expected to provide when analyzing Scalia's Michael H. decision.
This is like asking someone who occasionally makes sandwiches and doesn't know how to turn on his oven to suddenly cater a meal for Thomas Keller and his sous chef. I'll probably end up poisoning Mr. Keller, but will incur only manslaughter charges on account of it being painfully obvious to the judge and jury that I had no frickin' clue what I was doing.
OK, blank page. Just you and me now. 48 hours. 20 pages. No survivors.
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