Don't be a fool

This just in: Next week is finals week. For some of you, finals may have already begun.

Hopefully for your and my sanity both, this isn't the first you've heard about the upcoming finals week since you received the syllabus during week one.

Since most of you are probably just starting to think about studying, I'd suggest stocking up on cases of Red Bull, having your roommate hide your game consoles and having your mother overnight an emergency care package of cookies and Chex Mix.

You only have this weekend left to make up for all those weekends you went out instead of studying, all those days you slept in instead of going to class (it was oh-so-very cold when it snowed). There just may be enough hours left.

But you think you have it bad? I wish I had finals to prepare for. Being a graduate is a lot more taxing than it seems.

I sleep until 1 or 2 p.m., and since I have to be at work at 3 p.m., I never have time to do laundry. This means I have to sneak around doing laundry after posted appropriate laundry hours in fear that my landlord will evict me if he catches me doing so.

I have to stay up to all hours of the night just to catch up on the shows I recorded while I was working. How could I be a socially responsible young adult without knowing who got kicked off America's Next Top Model last week?

Some days I get on the bus with $1.25 that I dug out of the couch to be slapped with a $1.50 fare for peak hours. Then I must frantically dig around my bag for nickels and dimes, and at times even slink to the back of the bus after only paying $1.40 and throwing on my best poor graduate face. Read: I miss the U-PASS.

And on top of all this, I've been waiting all quarter for a job offer to appear on my doorstep [HTML_REMOVED] and nothing. Weird.

So yeah, after graduating this summer and realizing how tempting a life of nothingness is (as I expressed earlier this year), I'm begging for something like finals to challenge my wit and organizational creativity.

While college may not be "real life," it really is an awesome opportunity to take advantage of life's little wonders you won't see after you hang your diploma (which, btw UW, still hasn't been mailed to me yet).

A few of those "wonders" I've been missing and suggest you take advantage of are: the U-PASS; advisers who tell you what to do with your life; peers who are just as lost as you are (no, the drunks at the bar do not suffice as my peers); the sense of accomplishment after finals; spring, winter and summer breaks (turns out most people don't get these in real life); and (most of all?) a sense of camaraderie and unification for a campus cause, in that impossibly frustrating literary theory class, or late at night, sitting around drinking wine to feel sophisticated, talking about nothing at all.

So students, please, heed my advice: Cherish college [HTML_REMOVED] find your own little wonders. The time after is a time of exploration and opportunity as well, but don't rush through what you have left. No, college is not the Animal House-esque end-all be-all of a person's life, after which no "four years" will ever compare, but it's fun times.

College is not real life, but it sure is a kick. So appreciate it.

And kids [HTML_REMOVED] stay in school.

[Reach columnist Jen Ludington at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.]