By Amy Van Veen (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: November 7, 2012
It’s the most wonderful time of the year.
Oh wait, it’s November 7. Never mind. It’s not the most wonderful time of the year; it’s the worst time of the semester.
It’s happened again. The mid-semester funk. All of the September excitement of being back to school is now but a distant memory. The early October anticipation of midterms has now fizzled and the late October relief of midterms being over has been replaced by a dark cloud of suspended time. We’re in the thick of it now – that time when midterms become the distant memory of a bad dream and finals are like that awkward family gathering you know you have to go to, but aren’t really thinking about or looking forward to.
Any motivation the keener version of yourself had in September is long gone and you look at weekly assignments as something that you could possibly maybe get away with not doing. You wonder if maybe you don’t really have to stay for the entire lecture period. And worst of all those annoying existential questions of “why am I here?” start to pop up.
It’s funky time.
And I don’t mean the kind of funk that gets the Funk Soul Brothers up and dancing or the kind that has Lipps Inc talking about it, talking about it, talking about moving to a funkier town. That kind of funk would be a breath of fresh air at this point in the semester. If only we could all find that funk deep down inside ourselves just like Goofy in An Extremely Goofy Movie. But alas, university is not like the movies – and even less like the cartoon ones.
But then maybe that’s the answer. Maybe when the funk of Charlie Brown’s dark cloud hits November, the only answer is to throw Wild Cherry’s funk back at it. Fight funk with funk.
But then again, maybe that’s not the answer because a disco-themed party seems like a low-point in any university career – especially a disco-themed party where the main goal is to not be so bummed out. Perhaps the only answer to this kind of funk is getting together with equally funked-out friends, having a beer at AfterMath—while you can—and riding the wave of funk all the way to finals.
It’s important for people to take solace in the fact that they’re not the only ones who feel the dark clouds hanging above them – because the dark clouds are literally there. Have you looked up recently? This perma-cloud cover does not help with the mid-semester depression felt by both students and professors alike. The non-university world doesn’t quite understand. To them November is about how the red cups have reached Starbucks and Christmas is that much closer, but to students Christmas and red-cupped-goodness is blocked by the cloud and the upcoming feeling of finals dread that will hit when least expected.
Soon, though, the stress of final papers will replace the thick dark cloud November brings, and then Christmas carols will start to be played in stores which will at first be an exciting reminder of the holiday light at the end of the tunnel before becoming a little too repetitive. And then finals will be over before you have a chance to blink and a breath can finally be taken.
It may be funky time now, but it can’t last forever.
