Somerville with Townie Tim: Finals season

Hey, if you are reading this, congratulations! You’ve made it to week one of finals and you are doing great! As a matter of fact, you are doing so great that you have time to casually read the Daily. Flaunting your free time in this season of stress is a real power move.

Your boy Townie Tim is here once again to provide five-ish minutes of escapism from whatever you should be doing. Believe it or not, back before I got my "Townie" moniker, I was just Student Tim. I know it is a little less snappy of a nickname, but I guess I was with a more un-creative crowd. Anyway, at one time I also had deadlines, finals and essays to write, and I made a few rules that I thought I’d share with anyone who might find them useful.

First, it’s impossible to study where you live. I mean, come on, where you live has all your stuff. You wouldn’t have all that stuff if you didn’t think it was cool. And cool stuff is distracting! You absolutely cannot be expected to get anything done when you are surrounded by a bunch of stuff that you intentionally got, so you could have it in the place where you spend the most time. Even if you don’t like your living situation all that much, it’s even more of a reason to get out of there.

Next, it’s impossible to study in the library. I think the library is great in theory. There are tables, chairs and quiet spaces and being around books makes you feel smart. But in reality, it is much different. First off, there is never a place to sit. When they build college libraries they should plan for a capacity that is roughly three times the size of the student population. Why? Well you have to account for those folks that insist on taking up an entire table just so they can spread out all their stuff. In my experience, those folks actually see the act of studying as performative. More times than not they are scrolling through food blogs. Also, people talk, like, really loudly in the library. For some reason when you are in a place where you know people are supposed to be quiet, a normal conversation sounds like road-rage level yelling.

Finally, it is impossible to study in groups. Maybe it’s the crowds I run with, but when you study with friends, all you really do is just hang out. I mean, things are extra funny when you are supposed to be studying, so it makes the hangout really great. But if the ultimate goal is to pass International Finance, the group study session is not the way to go.

So where does that leave you? Study alone outside? I don't think so, it’s really cold and windy. Also, there are no outdoor desks, so you have to keep everything on your lap. Maybe the dining hall? At least then you can’t use hunger as an excuse to stop studying. I’ve never tried that, but it couldn’t hurt to give it a shot?