Caroline McEneaney wouldn’t be a student again for a million dirhams.
If you think the holidays are enough to drive a person stark-raving mad, I implore you to think back to your days as a student. No matter the age or grade, there was probably a winter in your life when you were a library lunatic. I know I was. It just took me a while to realise it.
As my university-age cousins stagger in to Abu Dhabi Airport for the holidays, I am reminded that this is the first winter I am final-exam-free. It’s amazing how quickly the memories of late night cramming fade once you move the tassel on your graduation cap. Looking at the worn faces of my studious relatives, I can’t help but sympathise with them over their recent struggle.
I may have had a harsher introduction to final exams than most considering that the first time I studied for an exam was when I was 22. All throughout grade school, I just couldn’t be bothered. Later, when I went to university, I studied art. So while my weary math-major roommate stumbled into our dorm from the library at 5am, I was fast asleep. To this day, she swears that I was smiling in my slumber as well.
So needless to say, when I started law school in the fall of 2010, I was in for a rude awakening.
I spent three months dreading my exams. I remember thinking that December 17, 2010 was a day that would simply never arrive. Imagining myself walking out of the school building having finished my first semester looked almost identical to one’s image of entering the pearly gates–a vague, glowing fantasy.
I studied and studied. I made flash cards and stayed up all night reading, memorizing, outlining. And quicker than I could have imagined, the day came. I can barely remember the test itself but I will never forget the rest of that day because it was the day my sanity hit its all-time low.
I left the school feeling strange. Everything looked the same. Riding home on the subway I began to smile. I had done it. The exams were over and I had nothing to worry about for three whole weeks. Now I get to return home to my three proud best friends with whom I lived–surely they were waiting at the door to greet me with open arms and a bottle of bubbly. But alas, nobody was home.
No big deal, I thought. I can relax for the first time since the summer. I felt proud. I had made it through my first semester without going completely crazy like everyone said I would. But the signs were all there in front of me.
I showered for the first time in days and changed into the fleece onesie I had bought for myself and all of my family members that year because it’s totally normal to buy your mother a bright pink hooded suit for Christmas. And for that matter your adult brothers as well. I sat in my bed watching Mad Men for several hours. Soon it was time for a smoke. I headed outside still dressed like a navy blue stuffed animal.
I sat alone in my slippers in the middle of New York City enjoying the crisp winter air. My neighbour walked by with her dog and smiled nervously. I took a drag, looked at her and said “you have a beautiful dog.” She tugged at the leash and quickly scurried away. I shrugged, went inside and went to bed.
It wasn’t until days later when I casually recited this lonely evening to my friend’s concerned and astonished face that I realised I might not have escaped this semester with all of my wits.
But luckily those days are behind me now and I’m perfectly sane, I swear.
