Well, it's finally here…the long-awaited, anticipated and dreaded finals week. Finals week comes with a mixture of emotions. Everyone is excited for them to be over with, because then it is break time, but looking at it the other way, you have to take finals to get to that break. Finals week at the University of Scranton is, in one word, insanity. The library is open till early into the morning, and it is always full. Besides from being full, it is completely silent. People will stare you down for breathing too loud. Most of the students walk down the commons in sweats or pajamas, some looking like they haven't showered all week, and smelling like that too. This is all normal. I am lucky this year. I only have two finals this week! How did I make out like such a bandit? Most of my classes this year required final papers and presentations instead of final exams. Depending on the type of student you are, this can either be a blessing or a curse. I enjoy having this week be calmer than usual, but last week, I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get all my work done. My hardest assignment was for my theology class, Contemporary Social Issues. I had a paper due this Friday which, according to the professor, in the past, students had handed in 40 over pages! So, Thursday was a rough day for me. My roommate and I had a dinner party planned on Thursday evening. We invited thirty people to come to our apartment for a home-cooked meal before finals. Do not ask me what we were thinking when we invited that many people, because we don't know. So, we cooked for a good portion of the day, which was fun. We made homemade macaroni and cheese and string bean casserole. It was a lot of fun, even if we overflowed boiling pasta a few times as well as ran the sink water all over the counter by accident!!! All in all, dinner was a success, thankfully. After that, I went to the library to work on this humongous, ridiculous paper. I was basically in the library from 7:30 PM to 12:30 PM (aka all night into the afternoon). I did go home for two hours to sleep, and my friend Matt called me to wake me up so I could trudge back to the library. This sounds exhausting, and it was…but I got it done, which is the important part. One thing that really becomes apparent during finals week is how important your friends on campus are. I never appreciate my friends during the semester as much as I do during this week. From wake-up calls, pre-finals breakfasts, study groups, venting sessions, procrastination periods, and late nights, this is the week where your friends really matter. I probably would not have been able to pull myself out of bed if Matt had not called me to gently force me to do so. My apartment-mates and roommate also play a huge part in survival during this week. From discussing the tests to eating popcorn to watching movies instead of studying, they help me stay focused in their own way. People always say that in college your friends become your family, and it is so true. I do not know what I would do without my friends here, and during this week, I come to appreciate them more and more. So there you have it…finals week. The week from hell which is followed by the best vacation ever, Christmas break!!! I am finished with my tests tomorrow at around 2 and then I am free. Expect some blogs and more rambling from me over break!