JSchool: The Last 113 Days

1.) Climb Everest (http://everestavalanchetragedy.com/mt-everest-journey.html)

I’m on top of the world!!!!!!!

2.) Read about celebrities doing awesome things amidst tragedy...(http://mic.com/articles/129279/heres-chrissy-teigens-response-to-fridays-planned-parenthood-shooting#.ZyrFTRDD6)

Really, what is the world coming to?

3.) ...and check people with equally awesome social media responses. 

Tell ‘em. 

4.) Watch a new show on Netflix.

Because it’s the first episode, I’m not going to get hooked. #liesitellmyself

5) Call my mom to feel better about myself.

But if I stay on too long, the smothering stops. :(( #achildforever

 6) through 17) Google-search ways to distract myself.

(http://www.wikihow.com/Distract-Yourself-from-Things-You-Don't-Want-to-Think-About)

If only I could get a masters in THAT. 

18) Find encouraging memes.

19) Dance. 

Remember, air is important. 

…graduation is 28 days away. Count it. 28. Despite that, there’s a sh*t ton of work to get done in what now feels like an impossibly short amount of time. This has had me trying to come up with reassuring thoughts, which has turned into a game of hypotheticals I call “Does It Help That…?” 

...

So here goes. “Does it help that…”

...and, yup, living on a prayer. (That’s Jon Bon Jovi for you youngins).

We’re 57 days away from graduation. The official halfway mark is upon us, yet all I’ve been worried about is the flu, excessive caffeine intake, and having over the counter pain meds for an assortment of aches and pains.

I think about relaxing, but when I try it, it’s like jschool is the lady at the DMV who looks at your paperwork, frowns, gets you on a technicality and sends you away to fill out some other paperwork.

Either way, you’re pretty sure not getting what you want today. And it’s two point four seconds away from getting all up in your feelings.

Let’s face it: ‘sick days’ are nonexistent.

The work doesn’t stop being due. Rarely are you actually relieved of your duties. Taking a recovery day is more like taking a high interest loan: it’s a forced necessity that you know you will massively regret.

It’s Day 36 (that’s 32% done with the semester) and being trapped in bed so far is no bueno. Sinuses are pressing into my face like a baker’s hands into bread dough, spreading and stretching its reach into my skull and down my throat.

It’s a silent war zone, save a cough, a sniffle, a passing airplane and a neighborhood that only decides to get noisy when a nap is necessary. *shakes fist at world*

Tea, Umcka Care, over-the-counter pain meds and sleep only passively serve as allies. *fist drops slowly, fatigued*

But these thoughts, expressed in two gifs and three numbered points, come to me in this order: (1) Work is stacking up, and (2) I’m f*cked, and (3) revisit numbers one and two.

I may be a weirdo...

...but sometimes, and I only mean SOMETIMES, I like working into the night.

I know. But let me make a case. Here are signs you might enjoy working late into the night.

That moment when #ThrowbackThursday playlist on Spotify played Green Day’s “Wake Me Up When September Ends” and understood my life too well...

*tears*

You don’t remember how you met (probably because of school or work), but you do wonder how you ever lived without each other. 

Waking up stuffy after just a week of school…

So groggy. Immune system needs to be like...

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGMlPDlY094)

This literally made me cry. I wonder if this is how our teachers feel. 

Begins today. #113daystilgraduation. 

Lots of feels today: a twinge of sadness to be back after a summer of working,

a warm, nostalgic feeling to see classmates--changed yet not all that different--take their places in the newsroom again, 

and anxiety knowing all too well what’s to come and be expected.

Going to try and chronicle this because, well, two reasons. Besides the fact that there was no journaling done for the trauma from the first two semesters,  this is it for us; the experience over the next 113 days will be a series of lasts, starting with this last first day of school, ending with our last last day of school and maybe our last degree. The second reason is simply that everything we’ll do here is probably going to have a lasting impact on what we do out in our lives, or at least in the world of journalism. 

So I want to try something: to keep track of some of our last moments and moments of lasting impact this semester. They may be on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or here, but they’ll all have the hashtag  #JSchoolLasts.