Gear Up Ladies!

As the semester comes to an end, we are faced with the greatest challenge of all, making it alive through the storm known as finals week. This is the time of the year we all dread. Your desk is a mess, you have leftover starbucks cups laying across the floor, and you can’t help but feel that your life is falling apart. It has become a tradition to sit in the library, talking to peers and debating about whose sleeping schedule is worse and who ate the least amount of food all day. As if, hurting our bodies like that is going to positively influence the score we receive on our finals. It has become such a common sentiment that everyone feels obligated to behave in this manner, but that is where we all are wrong. This semester has been rough for a lot of us, myself included. I have had the opportunity to become more involved on campus with clubs and research, but have also had to learn how to manage all of my time commitments with classes. Needless to say, I am ready for the semester to end, but the last few weeks I have failed to take care of my mind and body. I have made comments such as, “I am so over school” or “I cannot do this anymore”. To me, saying these phrases was not a big deal because that is how I truly felt since I was so burned out. However, it was not till these last two WSS meetings I realized that the struggle is the same for each and every one of us, but we have the power to change our outlook on the events occuring in our lives. It sounds cheesy, but just making small changes in our thoughts and the things we say can really improve our mood and performance. I realized this when I finally began to change the way I expressed my stress. We feel so confined to the way college students our age act that we forget another kind of mindset even exists. This past week, I had promised myself that I would rephrase any negative self deprecating thought into one where I am still able to release my stress, but also better myself. Through this I was able to release my frustration about my failures, but also find the motivation to reprimand my mistakes and move forward. This is the home stretch ladies, we have made it this far, so let’s put aside all the negativity that surrounds us and finish off the semester strong.