The Finals Week from Hell: Fall Semester in Retrospect

So here we are, on the brink of a new semester, and all the blogging I had planned for christmas break didn't get done at all.  Oops.  I guess I was too busy having fun.  :)

There are lots of things I had planned on blogging about.  Tim Tebow and the Broncos.  Skiing.  Fun times with the family.  The meaning of Christmas.  Sin.  Joy.  Beautiful baby boys and girls who giggle and make me (momentarily) rethink my "plan" that I don't want children.  But the one thing that I can't shake, the one thing that I think I just HAVE to share, is finals.  Not because it was glorious, but because it was extraordinarily ugly.  And so, so magnificent. 

There's some basic background you need to this story:  I'm not great at school.  I'm about average on intelligence, but my stubborn level (and thus, when I want it to be, my work ethic) is probably in the 99th percentile.  (Seriously, ask my mom.  She'll tell you the same thing).  I don't get great grades, I really struggle with testing, but high school taught me how to B.S. just about anything, so I manage. I'm not outstandingly organized - I only color-code things because I like for things to look like rainbows, not because it's actually something helpful.  I know where all my crap is, but it's chaos to anyone else.  I know how to plan ahead, but just because I know how, doesn't mean I always do it.

In high school (before I was a Christian), I found my justification, my purpose, and my identity to a large degree in my grades.  Not entirely, some of it was found in my athletic ability, my rebellious phase, my "cool factor", my friendships, and other things.  But a lot of it, probably the majority of it, was in my performance at school, and how much I can be involved in.  Since I've become a Christian, I recognize that this is neither healthy or productive, and I've sought to define my identity in one thing only - Christ.  But this has not always been an easy transition.  And I have come a long way, but there is still a long road in front of me. 

And then, this semester, finals came back to bite me, in a big way.  A really big way.  Ask a couple of the girls from my church, they'll tell you what a mess I was.  I think they probably thought someone kidnapped me and replaced me with a crazed, schitzo, manic-depressive clone who was about to burst into tears and/or throw something through a window at any moment.  I feel bad I imposed my very presence on them, that's how much of a nut-job I was. 

In thinking about it in retrospect (always 20/20, right?), I never really got myself together after Haiti.  I jumped straight into traveling and working and family reunions and new bosses and graduations and friends and family... phew!  And then I moved back to DC, and jumped into classes and reading and new work stuff, and friends and a new living situation, and getting behind in classes through something that truly wasn't any fault of my own.  And then 18 credit-hours (mostly upper-level) and church and working 20 hours and crazy professors.... goodness!  So I'm already 6 months exhausted. 

And then finals hit. I'm not sure when this became acceptable, but I took 6 classes.  And I had 9 finals.  Yes, you read that correctly, it's not a type-o.  9 finals.  In one class in particular, I earned 70% of my grade, through 3 COMPLETELY DIFFERENT assignments in the last WEEK (singular) of classes.... (Ridiculous!)  My finals accumulated to 3 comprehensive exams plus 6 research papers which ended up totaling somewhere between 85-100 pages of papers on 6 completely different topics.  And in 3 of those classes, I needed good (B or higher) grades on the finals, or I'd lose my scholarship.  2 of those tests came from crazy-psycho professor who expected way too much out of us (and that's coming from someone who never says that).  Talk about the finals week from hell.

And to top it all off - AU cut off my internet with 2 1/2 weeks left in the semester, for no apparent reason.  And the nearest 24-hour place with internet to me is a 1 mile walk and then a 3 mile bus ride.  What a delightful icing on an already intimidating cake.  *Thank you, AU OIT, you have no idea how much I appreciate you...*  I spent about 12 hours being mad.  And then I realized my being mad wasn't going to fix it.  So I just had to dive in and figure it out.   And nearly all of figuring it out involved relying on the Lord.  In a way I've never done before. 

***Disclaimer:  I'm not saying this for your sympathy, or to point out how much I can juggle successfully.  I'm pointing this out first so that you understand the obstacles I had in my way to remaining faithful to the Lord's plan.  Because He has made it abundantly clear that I am to remain in school right now.  And that plan, unless God provides a giant bag of money from the sky, is going to require my scholarship.  And second, in order that you might understand how desperate I was for any help from the Lord.  Through circumstances almost entirely out of my control, I ended up in this situation, and I had to fight through the victimization mentality, and through the stubborn "I'm a big girl and I can handle anything" mentality and really, really humble myself.***

I hit a point about a week and a half into it, writing papers, where all I could muster was 10 minutes of writing.  Then I'd go read the Bible and pray for 5.  Then write for ten.  Pray for five.  Repeat.  Over and over.  All.  Night.  Long.  And I just kept saying, "Lord, this is all I've got left.  This is it.  I'm giving it everything, and this is just going to have to be enough.  Because even though it's not much, I really truly don't have anything more than this."  I'm sure the other people at the 24-hour Starbucks thought I was completely crazy looking, frantically writing for ten minutes, spread out over 2 chairs and an entire coffee table, and then pulling out my Bible and my journal at various intervals, fighting off tears.

I was desperate.  For anything.  For any sense of relief.  The enemy sent so many discouraging thoughts, discouraging people, and discouraging emotions my way, I could hardly bat them off before the next one hit me.   One of my friends, M., kept encouraging me (so well, so wonderfully - what a blessing she was!!).  She kept saying, "You're going to make it!  I promise!" And on a rational level, I knew that was true.  I knew that even an entire week with not a single second of sleep would not actually kill me.  That I was not in any way in danger.  But so often, I didn't believe it - really.  I didn't know if I was going to make it through without being institutionalized.  I thought "Oh, Lord, I'm not sure!  I'm not sure I can! I don't have it in me!"  I didn't see people, I skipped meals and nights of sleep, the only thing I did was work on school.  Without reprieve.  I was so, so very tired.  All I wanted to do was just sit and cry.  But I knew if I let myself do that I wouldn't be able to pick myself up again, and keep going, so I just fought it.  I knew if one tear fell, it would be over.  And so I read the Psalms.  Over and over.  Especially Psalm 25 and Psalm 103.  I just prayed through them over and over, and over and over.  Never have I ever read one chapter of the Bible so many times in such a short span of time.

I honestly can't recall ever being that desperate for the hand and presence of God.  And you know what? That saying that says, "God won't ever give you more than you can handle"?  I'm here to tell you that's CRAP.  Blarney.  Hogwash.  Hooey.  Absolute bullshit.  God OFTEN gives us more than we can handle.  But you know what?  He NEVER gives us more than HE can handle (I mean, He is the God of the Universe.  There's nothing He can't handle!).  And that was where I was.  I could not do what I needed to do alone.  I needed God.  Truly needed Him.  For me and for my grades.  Not for my glory, for His.

I had to fight through the pride that wanted to ask for good grades so that I could build myself up.  But I fought through, to a place where I could honestly say, "Lord, I don't care what grades I get.  I really don't.  But if you want me to stay in school, you're going to have to get me through this, because I don't see a way out.  I can't do this.  Any of it.  If this is where you want me, you're going to have to do the heavy lifting.  And I'll give you the credit you deserve.  But this is ALL you."

And you know what?  God was GOOD!  SO, ABUNDANTLY GOOD TO ME!!!!!!! I ended up with MUCH better grades than I expected, and I hung on to my scholarship by more than the skin of my teeth like I was expecting.  I saw the grace and provision of God in his Body (oh, praise the Lord for His community!!!), in his protection of me, in his great and abiding peace.  In his sovereign provision of internet when I really needed it, and closing time when what I really needed was sleep.  With friends who helped me, both in class and out of it, with coffee that actually helped me, with professors who were graciously understanding of my situation.  Grace beyond my wildest imagination. 

It wasn't at all pretty.  Or fun.  Or an experience I would want to repeat.  Ever.  But the Lord taught me so much - I had to cling so desperately to Him, I had to not just lean on Him, but throw myself at His feet and beg for him to carry me, and through it, I saw and experienced the sanctification of the Spirit in new ways, the continued destruction of idols, the faithfulness of the Father, treasured the propitiation, justification, and redemption of the Son in new and more meaningful ways,  and experienced the rest and peace of the Lord.  And I learned that sometimes the best, most wonderful moments are experienced when there is absolutely nothing else left. 

And there's nobody I'd rather walk through that week with than my Abba.

Painful Breakups and Ugly Letters

Dear Higher Education,

I don't like you anymore.  Seriously, I don't. I did, really - when we started this relationship I thought it was going to work.  I wanted it to work.  But I was young and naive then...  Now I see you for who you really are, and what you really want from me.  All this time, you put up your facade, and you tricked me into believing this was the best thing for me.  Even when I started seeing problems, I fought for this relationship - I did everything you asked of me.  And even then, I thought we could work through this.  But clearly, we can't.  I've seen the light, and I don't actually like you anymore.

You give me too much to do, and too much stress.  I want to learn (believe me, I do!) but I really, really despise you.  All too often you squelch learning in favor of doing, which really just pisses me off.

You ask me to sacrifice sleep for you, fun for you, friends for you, even God for you.  You zap my brain of all energy and coherent thought.  I sit in class trying to pay attention and simultaneously writing essays for other classes.  That is not acceptable.  I struggle to stay awake, and I feel the pressure to get a good job and to make money.  You tell me that unless I have a 4.0, I'm not doing good enough.  Your professors tell me that their class is the most important, but all 6 of them say that!  You tell me that I'm on facebook too much, but also not enough.  You tell me that I should make school my first priority, but you make it so expensive that I have to work at the same time.  Your professors say that my work isn't good enough, and that if I can't do it I shouldn't be here.  There are no late assignments, ever, because nothing outstanding ever happens in life that would require me to ask for a reasonable extension, but if I'm not also out "living life" then I'm missing out on the experience. You are the reason my schedule looks like this:

You tell me that I have to sacrifice everything, including my standards and my expectations, especially the most basic of standards like sleep, food, and pursuing God. You have cost me money, and time, and friendships and sleep.  You have cost me sanity.  You don't adequately equip me for the things you expect of me, and you fail to account for your waste and my struggles.  You engage with corrupt politicians, and poor teachers who are here only because they didn't know what else to do.  It's a miracle I haven't thrown a brick at someone yet (or through the window).  Your administration has no interest in my education, they have interest in their kingdoms and their money, and only costs me everything.  You would claim my identity and my soul if I let my guard down.

But I won't do it anymore!  I'm going to stand up "against the man" and take as many naps as I want, for as long as I want.  I will not be a stereotype or a statistic, and I will not end up on the cover of a magazine for my successes or failures.  I'm not going to gain weight, nor will I be affected by an eating disorder.  I will not be a partier who flunks out, or that girl who locks herself in the library, only to look back on college wishing she'd let loose.  I will not sleep around just because it's college.  I will not do what you tell me, college!  You will not claim my identity or my life.  I will no longer let school get in the way of my learning.  You do not own me, you do not define me.  You will most certainly not demand anything of me - because you are not my identity.  I refuse to let you claim me with your vice-grip.

Dear school, I wash my hands of you.  I will pursue learning to the highest standard, but you - I'm breaking up with you.  I want to say I'm wishing you well as we part ways, but that's not true.  I wish you the most rapid and humiliating of demises.  We're through, we're finished, and I don't ever want to hear from you again.

Hugs and Kisses.
K

Things I Wish I'd Known Earlier About College...

• You don't have to find your best friends immediately - or even your first year.  Cultivating relationships and building new ones is a good thing.  You're allowed to feel a little lost.  Just don't let it paralyze you.
• Procrastination is NEVER a good thing.  [And yet so tempting...]
• However, procrastination is never an excuse for not doing your homework.
• Group projects suck just as much as they did in high school.  Maybe more.  But professors still assign them, so get over it.
• Oreos and Ice Cream (together or separately) make the best late night desserts (or sorbet, if you happen to be vegan...)
• Learning how to laugh with your roommate, at your roommate, and allowing your roommate to laugh at you will make life infinitely more fun and easy.
• Sometimes implementing a bedtime, even in college, is a good thing.
• Grades are not as important as your parents told you they were.
• Journal.  It's good for the soul.
• You should never buy your textbooks from the bookstore.
• You're allowed to jump on your bed now, whenever you want - if you want.  And you should want, because it's great fun!
• You can even jump on your bed in red onesie pj's and sing Michael Jackson into your hairbrush at the top of your lungs at 12am if you want.
• Spend time with little kids.  They're one of the best, most sanctifying and most encouraging gifts God has given us, even if they aren't biologically yours.
• Make yourself a little bit vulnerable.
• Making friends with people who own cars is a good thing.  Just remember to give them gas money.
• If you have a car, be nice to people who don't.  They'll be eternally grateful, and you might make some new friends in the process.
• Sometimes people are just grumpy.  Some people are always grumpy.  It doesn't mean you have to be.
• You do not have to know what you are doing with your life.
• You do not have to know what you are doing with your life.
• One more time: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING WITH YOUR LIFE! God's plans are very often not our plans.  Tear up your 10-year plan.  It's worthless.
• Learn to love the chaos.
• Cultivating your silly is important.
• You will be poor.  It's ok - it will make you creatively resourceful.
• You will eat a lot of microwave food.  It may or may not give you cancer, depending on who you talk to.  But you will eat microwave food or starve, so you will eat microwave food and risk the cancer.
• Couscous is the BEST college dorm meal - boil water, pour in couscous, let sit.  Enjoy.  Easiest. Thing. Ever.
• You're allowed to bend some of the rules.
• You don't NEED a printer.  But they're nice to have...
• You DO need more than one set of sheets and one set of towels, no matter what your father tells you HE went through school with (the uphill-both-ways-in-the-snow-stories from your parents - tell them to be a big girl/boy and get over it.  You need at least 2 sets of each).
• Similarly, you do not NEED to do laundry until you are out of underwear.  But when you are out of underwear, you NEED to do laundry.
• Flip flops, tie-dye t-shirts, jeans that you have worn every day this week, sweats, pj's, oversize hoodies, and mismatched outfits are all acceptable to wear to class.
• You can fit 2 loads of laundry into 1 dryer.
• You need tupperware.  So you can steal a weeks worth of meals from the dining hall. Plan it into your schedule
• Living in a dorm is tight.  (Literally, it's a tight space.  But it can also be cool, yo) You will learn to deal.
• Living on campus is a good experience, even if it's hard some days.
• Stop complaining.
• Engage - with everything.
• Don't burn things.  Setting off the fire alarm in your building makes EVERYONE mad.
• Send letters.  Find a friend and be pen pals.  Getting mail is fun, sending mail is even funner.
• You're allowed to make up words like "funner", as long as you do it with authority.
• You're allowed to have hard days.  Some of them will be so challenging and difficult, you'll want to cry.  Some days you will cry.
• You're not allowed to have bad days.  Every day is a gift from the Lord, so treat it as such
• You are allowed to cry
• You are allowed to miss home
• Call your parents every now and again, just to say hi

 Most importantly:

• Learn, love, and grow.  Do everything to the glory of the Lord - all else will fall into place.  

Things That Frustrate Me About Higher Education

Stereotypes.  And conversely, hipster stereotypes.  Because yes, they do it too - its just the flip side of the same coin (and yes, I do recognize the irony that I am stereotyping here too).  It's like being a non-conformist by rejecting everything that is popular just because it's popular. 

For those of you who don't go to AU - I go to a school that is sometimes very challenging.  Both in good ways and in bad.  Because everyone is so into rejecting stereotypes and being "enlightened", that sometimes people miss reality altogether.  It can be very elitist. 

Today, for example, I was in my contemporary Africa class.  Talk about a class that tries to defeat stereotypes... Africa isn't inferior.  Africa isn't all poor.  Africa isn't "tribal".  Africa has civilization.  Africans are smart.  Africans are the same as Europeans, when it comes down to it. Africa deserves study unique to itself. And on and on and on.*

But sometime the sterotypes merit close examination.  Because sometimes they are completely true.

We have been told that stereotyping is wrong.  That assuming others are inferior is wrong.  That acknowledging that differences are bad is wrong.   Cultural relativity is something that has permeated our culture so deeply, that we do not even recognize it's fingerprints sometimes. 

In comparing Switzerland (a country with 4 official languages because of it's great diversity) and Nigeria (a country which has 250+ recognized  ethno-linguistic groups), I offered up the analysis that Germans, French, and Italians have a strong common underlying culture, that often overrides the differences, allowing them to live peacefully together despite the differences.  Meanwhile, the 250+ in Nigeria have an overwhelming number of differences rather than similarities, which override the potential unity of cultures and creates intra-state conflict and interstate conflict.  Which makes unification, operation, and involvement in the international community extremely difficult.  

[In retrospect, I could have articulated this better.  What I meant was that the actual, statistical number of things that could be classified as "different" and "common" might be exactly the same, or even in favor of Nigeria.  What I mean (and this is strictly my perception) is that the RELATIVE number of differences and commonalities are extremely different.  As in, the relative strength or weakness of each.]

My professor quickly shut me down on my "differences over commonalities" theory.  She did it respectfully, and I appreciate that, but it was quite clear that she thought I was dead wrong.  And we then proceeded to discuss the extreme difference between various countries and groups within countries for the next hour.  And there are many significant differences.  It was a nuanced thing, probably something only I noticed (although perhaps that is not affording my classmates enough credit)... But it frustrated me.  Because this, folks, is cultural relativity in action.  This is my professor telling me that the stereotype is wrong, because no culture can be wrong, and then proving that she is wrong in the span of an hour and a half.   [Welcome to AU].

The inverse-stereotype that exists in this academic sphere (especially, in a most extreme version, on this campus and in the IR department) is that Africa's countries are not inherently any different than European countries, they were just unfortunately involved in some of Europe's shadier moments and came out with the short end of the stick, because of various factors beyond their control.  To suggest otherwise makes you an uneducated rat who doesn't deserve to be in college.  But the truth of the matter is, they ARE different.  In a lot of ways.  In attempting to avoid stereotyping with "common" stereotypes - the stereotypes that were part of the "old age", the less enlightened way of thinking - She inadvertently fell into intellectually dishonest territory.  She (and many others in the class who reacted to my statement), in attempting to be "fair and equal" actually found themselves being dishonest.  They were analyzing the situation and history based upon their presupposed conclusions rather than allowing the history to tell them what truly happened.  And the honest truth is, that with a vacuum of strong leadership virtually anywhere on the continent, factions rivaled one another as soon as the common enemy left.  Once the relative strength of that unifying factor was eliminated, the relative strength of the differences grew.

Clearly, people in Switzerland are not having problems with genocide, toppling various dictators every other decade, collapsing economies, rebel armies, or stolen resources.  So people with vast and numerous differences CAN live together.  And despite the fact that they may not even like each other, the underlying issue is that they do not FEAR one another.  The problem in much of Africa is that everyone who is different poses a threat.  Because they might try to take away your water resources.  Or your land.  Or your children.  Or your virginity.  Or your government position.  Or any other number of things.  And so people protect.  And they take up arms to protect.  And they fight to preemptively take out anyone who might be a future threat.  Because that's just how it is.  The fear exacerbates the differences, and makes them stronger than the similarities. 

And that's an issue that needs to be honestly addressed before Africa is going to come anywhere close to being as stable as Switzerland.  I don't care what you believe about the superiority or inferiority or equality of Africans - there is nothing good about a state that is that destabilized. It doesn't have to resemble Switzerland in any other way, but stability is a necessity. 

So there you have it.  Intellectual dishonesty makes me CRAZY.  As do stereotypes.  And sometimes, hipsters. 



*Please understand - I'm not saying these are false.  They aren't bad or dishonest.  I am not saying that Africans are unable to overcome differences.  I am not saying they are "worse" or "lesser" people than the people of Switzerland.  But these are the converse stereotypes - the reactionary version of colonialism in a post-modern enlightened era, if you will - which dominates the field in general.  And sometimes things are more complicated than stereotypes.  But also, sometimes there is truth in the "old, uneducated" way of thinking.  And this needs to be recognized. 

P.S.  You know what else makes me crazy?!  When people ramble.  So if you made it all the way through this - congratulations.  And my sincerest apologies.

Definitions

Current theme of my life:  

Bullshitting - V.  To spout shenanigans with great passion and flair as though you are an expert;  Blarney; The process by which someone creates and relates nonsense to others who are also pretending to be experts.

syn.  clap-trap; mumbo jumbo, balderdash; horseradish; college; drivel; hogwash; hooey; poppycock; tripe; rot

n. - Bullshitter; Bullshit.  adv. - bullshitly.  adj. - Bullshitish

Other Favorite Words:

All-Nighter: N. A night during which one forgoes sleep in order to accomplish some meaningless task; A manner in which one can rapidly acquire an otherwise obnoxious caffeine addiction; An undesireable task forced upon modern students in order to "go anywhere in life" or avoid "flippin' burgers" for the remainder of eternity. 

Finals Week: N.  Hell;  The worst week of any given 6-month period for at least 16 of the first 22 years of one's life (or, if one is a masichist (aka aspiring doctor/lawyer), for 28 years of one's life); a time at which young adults tap into a dormant superhuman power in order to earn a small piece of paper.

Baking: v.  What honors students who don't drink do to relieve stress.