How to Prepare for Monsters and Midterms

It’s October, dear blog readers, which means our favorite autumnal sights have been appearing all around campus. I’m sure you've noticed the abundance of pumpkin-themed events on your Facebook timeline as well as the ever-increasing mentions of our second annual organ concert. However, what you might not have noticed yet is the spookier side of what this month inevitably brings. In our midst, all over college hill, there are ghosts, vampires, werewolves, witches, and the spookiest creature of them all, midterms.I’m sorry if the mere mention of this monster sends shivers down your side, but fear not. As a humanities major with no real understanding of what these monsters are, I have made it my singular mission to figure out what these creatures are and find ways to stop them.I had my theories, as any amateur sleuth must. I thought potentially that midterms were a demon possessing our professors or perhaps a new type of vampire, only flickering into existence at night, sucking student’s blood as they hastily tried to study. To stop it, I presumed the old tricks might work: silver bullet, wooden stake, holy water, exorcism, etc. Unfortunately, none of these options worked and none of my theories were right. I turned to my fellow students plagued by these supernatural apparitions to see what they had to say on the matter. I asked a few simple questions to see if I could understand the origins of this College Hill devil.Why are they called midterms?“Because anything between the beginning and end of the term is technically in the middle of the term,” said one apparent engineering major. I’m a bit unsure on this math, but we’ll trust the STEM major.Do we even do terms here? Can we call a semester a term?“I think a semester is a term, but a term is not technically a semester,” answered our very technically-focused STEM major.“It’s like a square and a rectangle,” replied another student, avoiding his last minute studying. Thankfully, my two dedicated experts googled my question. “A semester is a type of term,” the first asserted.“So, theoretically, each class could have multiple terms since a term is just a duration of time. We may never know when they’re coming,” the procrastinator responded.“A term is not necessarily a semester. A class could have as many terms and midterms as they wanted,” yelled the questionably mathematical STEM major. He never clarified who they were. “We’re on the same wave,” the boys said simultaneously.How do you defeat midterms?“Holy water across a priest and a lot of praying,” a superstitious student hunched away in the corner of the scili declared.“You get your study buddy to crucify you on top of the library,” another attested as he attempted to climb onto the roof.“You ever see the conjuring? You get two professors to be those two people you know?” nervously asked a girl casting spells in the stack.“Didn’t that happen in scream? He was on the cross and got shot a lot?’ screeched a boy from a study room.“Maybe it’s a The Babadook situation where you just have to deal with it,” admitted the original STEM major. He suddenly stopped ripping his math homework apart with his teeth“Every time you knock three times midterms are going to knock back,” whispered the original procrastinator who slumped back down into his chair. He seemed terrified, but at peace. Much like the movie which I haven’t seen, but sounds somewhat the same.ConclusionUltimately, I still have no idea what a midterm is. Half my classes are S/NC. The other ones are on that weird creative border where there’s no way to really prove I know anything. What I do know is that midterms still don’t make sense, and they are absolutely the spookiest monsters on campus this month. However, there are ways to keep these bad spirits away. The most efficient method is to study for them, but who really has the time for that? Other ways include avoiding them eternally: drop out, be sick, pretend you were attacked by another October monster, etc. You can also be like me! Acknowledge your superstitions, but never take another math / economics / language / philosophy / science class literally ever. Trust me, these October spooks will never haunt you again. Image via.