waiting

i am dreading finals. i hate the feeling of doom that it brings forth. the "i think i've studied enough, but i'm not sure, so i'm going to just stay up all night and read these notes as many times as possible before i have to take it" feeling. i absolutely do not understand how people find finals to be relaxing. i've decided either a) they don't really care about their grades, or b) their finals are such that studying isn't necessarily going to help - you know it, or you don't. none of this dozens of pages of vocab terms to memorize, essays to outline, old notes to look through, etc. to give an example of what i'm talking about, here is my list of what i have to do to study for my world geo final on friday (just world geo, mind you):

- make flashcards for vocab from class notes
- memorize class notes vocab
- make flashcards for vocab from the textbook
- memorize textbook vocab
- read 4 chapters in the textbook (approx. 100 pages) at least three times
- read notes from class at least five times
- figure out the sections the cumulative portion will be on
- review class notes from previous exams
- review vocab from previous exams (both from notes and from the textbook)
- review the countries of north america, south america, and the pacific rim for a map quiz

i have a list like this for every one of my six finals.

this is why i hate finals week. i realize that my posts as of late have not been very happy, but i dread this more than anything. part of it is that i just hate actually taking the tests, because they are mentally exhausting and you come out of them ready to turn off your brain, but you have to immediately start in studying for the next one. and i know i will spend the next six days sleep deprived and wishing i had more time. also, and this is the first time i've ever done this, i started studying ahead of time. all of my vocab for all six of them are already typed, and i've done the reading for some. it's not even study day yet (well, technically it is seeing as it's 1:14 am, but whatever) and i'm going to have the vocab memorized for world geo and spec mind before i go to bed. just having the vocab typed up has saved me hours already. as a result, i'm waiting for this feeling of total panic to set in when i realize that i don't have time to study everything i need to. maybe that won't happen this time. i should think positively. maybe my working ahead will pay off and i will actually feel prepared for a final, for once. that would be very strange. all i can say is, i am so glad i never have to do this again.