Finals Week: My Strange Obsessions

Every Finals Week, it's something.

Apps like Trivia Crack, 2048, and Yik Yak all swept our college campus as Finals Week fixations. Last quarter, I watched every single blind audition for The Voice from every single season... and I don't even like The Voice. It's like our minds are so desperate for any outlet that's NOT STUDYING that they immediately orient themselves around whatever's at hand.

Okay, so it's not all that bad: all the way back in freshman Winter Quarter, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries started out as a Finals Week obsession of mine, with 100 episodes in about 4 days. So did watching every seaon of The Guild. But this time? Boy, a textbook case of falling down the rabbit hole. Funnily enough, I had actually been pegging soy candles to be what was going to take me under this week. Alas, not even close...

This quarter's obsession started out innocuously enough: I discovered that one of my favorite YouTubers, Elle Fowler, also runs a pretty planner Instagram in her spare time. That simple trip across social media platforms, sharply spiraled downwards, into hours upon hours discovering the recesses of the YouTube planner obsessives community.

Elle's video that started the spiral... Planner 101. Was there any way I could have resisted?

It's a classic addictive pattern: I was already susceptible to all of the things I've gotten addicted to, planners just make me an especially easy target. This year, I ended up springing for a $60, online-orders-only Whitney English Day Designer, just so I would be given the opportunity to micromanage my own schedule to my heart's content.

But lately, it's been looking a little bare... because I'm so wrapped up in Finals prep - and because the hectic amount of things going on have made this both one of the best and worst Quarters of my life - there are entire stretches of pages left blank. That's been weighing on my conscience. But now, even though my own life isn't in order, I can log on to YouTube, and watch entire 35-minute-long videos of Southern suburban moms decking out their Erin Condrens with overpriced gel pens and specialty Etsy sticker prints...

However, as I found myself attempting to rationalize spending $30 worth of cutesy Korean stickers and foreign specialty washi tape on Amazon as a totally viable lifestyle choice, I realized change was necessary.

Now, after the fog has lifted, look what's become of my oh-so carefully curated Etsy "Favorites" section: top to bottom with adorable, twee, hipster stickers... for three straight pages.

Not saying they aren't cute, and not saying that's I'm not still going to buy at least a couple of them after this is all over... because, let's face it, my planner is a little bare, and anything that brings me closer to Mabel from Gravity Falls brings me one step closer to God.

But HOLY GUACAMOLE, guys, that was a close one. Here's to hoping I make it through the rest of Finals Week in one piece... but at least, if not, I'll be able to stick myself back together with washi tape.

My last one's this Wednesday, so wish me luck. For those of you still on the grind, like me, here's what's been circulating in my sorority as motivation for the past week. Happy Finals!