DISCLAIMER: The following is satirical.
We here at the Ivory Belltower are well aware that students may face significant stress as they dive into yet another period of finals. Here are some healthy ways to manage stress and kick some rear end on your tests!
- Cheat; if you ace your test, there’s no reason to stress. Take advice from the Greek community and withdraw from your local test bank.
- “What if I’m not a member of a test bank?” Don’t worry if you aren’t well connected enough with a subtly corrupt organization, take a page out of the playbook and bribe the tutor/TA to give you the answers. Don’t stress about them ratting on you, everybody has his or her price..
- “What if I lack both privilege and money?” Well then, you might have to resort to more extreme methods. You have to seduce your professor; don’t worry though since in the process, you’ll be able to release some stress
“What if I’m not able to use any of these viable methods due to my lack of money and/or sex appeal?” Don’t worry your ugly, poor self! There are many other cheating alternatives!
- Sit next to that one smart guy on test day and copy while he’s in the bathroom.
- Ask an upperclassman for past finals. This proves even more successful if he or she has already graduated and doesn’t give a darn anymore.
- Write some answers/formulas in code on your water bottle. For example, in a modern British history course, the word “duck” could correspond to the definition for antidisestablishmentarianism: the reactionary movement against the liberal proposal to remove the Church of England as the State Church during the 19th century.
“What if I am ethically opposed to cheating?” Be honest with yourself here, you would cheat in a heartbeat if it weren’t for the administration being such fuddie-duddies about this whole sort of thing. Still though, here are some alternatives to “creative academics.”
- Take a deep breath. Science has shown that deep breathing is key to maintaining a level head.
- Take some opiates. Both science and my friend Jeff have shown that morphine is key to maintaining a level head, at least in the short run.
- Binge drink. Nothing clears your head like a nice bender.
- Quit school. Your tests can’t cause you stress if you don’t have any!
- Make a stupid listicle to blow off some steam as you watch journalism slowly decay into shallow trivium.
- Roll down a hill encased in bubble wrap. The satisfactory feeling of popping bubble wrap has been shown to eliminate stress; by rolling down a hill, you increase your popping rate! By combining this literal rolling with idiomatic rolling on Ecstasy to quintuple your popping efficiency. At least that’s what my friend Jeff told me.
- Stare out a window endlessly. Trust me, the abyss is oddly comforting.
- Punch a brick wall for hours. Your stress will be completely gone once the blood has made a slurry with the dried particles of Earth.
- Take a walk. And just keep walking until you’ve reached the highway. Hitchhike to California and start a new life as a balloon-animal maker.
- Cry into your mirror. Take a good long look at yourself and recall all of your mistakes and awkward social encounters in elevators, a nice long cathartic cry will knock the stress right out of you.
- Make a pot of cannabis tea. Tea has a nice, soothing effect on your body; so does cannabis (at least that’s what my friend Jeff told me). Why not couple them together!
- Read a list of stress relief tactics and wonder why your student fees go to pay for such sophomoric drivel.
- Take a page out of Camus: live in spite of the absurdity of life and pick up a cigarette vice.
<Editor’s Note: These are not healthy life decisions. I also do not have a friend named Jeff, as I do not have any friends.>
