Listen, folks: The PCL being open 24 hours, 7 days a week could be taken as a license to increase your productivity — imagine all the extra books you can digest with 24 whole hours in those fluorescent-lit halls! — but you and I both know that most UT students will be doing a little, if not a lot, of procrastinating in the coming weeks.
Instead of putting off your studying by devouring reddit.com posts in the dingy chairs of the library, I’d like to offer you a few other ways to avoid studying while sailing the stormy seas of finals season:
1. Drive to an all-night diner and eat a decadent meal
Studying for hours at a time is hard work, not unlike swimming miles of laps or running endless yards on the track. That’s right: You’re a mind athlete, and, like Olympians, you need excessive amounts of calories to be a student. If you’re feeling flush, drive to 24 Diner on Lamar for a maple milkshake and chicken and waffles or order a luxuriously tall stack of pancakes at Kerbey Lane.
2. Jump in a campus fountain
Jumping in Littlefield Fountain will wake you up faster (and more cheaply) than shooting an energy drink, and you’re guaranteed to make the next edition of “Campus Watch!”
3. Calculate and re-calculate the grade you need on the test
Why practice the problems you’ll be tested on when you can practice the art of prediction? Who knows — maybe figuring out the number of points you need on the final project to balance the grade you got on the midterm is the only way you’ll know whether you’re the next Nate Silver.
4. Buying new school supplies and alphabetizing your textbooks
How can you study without brand new Post-it notes in a variety of different colors? You can’t, damn it! Put down your textbook and head to the University Co-op.
5. Pore over your future plans
Go ahead, Google those grad school statistics. What better time to ask major questions about your life plans than two hours before that crucial test?
6. Sleep
I know, snuggling between your comforter and your mattress on a cold winter night when you should be studying seems antithetical, but who knows? Maybe sleeping the night before the big test will allow you to regurgitate the answers with something resembling competency in the subject.
7. Prank strangers who are sleeping in public places
If you’re not sleeping yourself, why not build a pyramid with the belongings of that dude sleeping in the PCL? Sure, there’s the risk that he’ll wake up and you’ll suddenly be tumbled into a confrontation with a stranger, but what’s your alternative? Watching another kitten video?
8. Confess your love to that classmate you’ve had a crush on all semester
Hear me out: The window to shyly stare at his neck from the adjacent seat is closing. Soon, you’ll just be another cute stranger from that intro class he took, passing each other as you both walk to class. Take a chance and invite him to your study group. When in doubt, be honest. Try this: “I need to study for finals, and also, I’ve wanted to make out with you for the majority of the semester — would you like to grab a coffee and talk about the course material?” If you get rejected, assume he has a mail-order bride and just isn’t wearing his wedding ring.
9. Relentlessly monitor your friend’s Facebook and Twitter updates
Has Emily finished her final? Has Dave finished his? Are they infinitely superior to you because of their fortunate finals schedules?
10. Make coffee (the long way)
Listen, you need the caffeine. Why not hand-grind the beans and steam the milk yourself?
Wright is a Plan II and biology junior from San Antonio.
