Hell Week is over.......

Another semester has come and gone, which means I have just endured a week commonly referred to in most college circles as "Hell Week". Basically this is the week in which all your major projects and such are do as well as the week leading up to exams. Depending on your situation this could also extend into exam week. I know that mine did. At my school the official "Exam period" began on Friday the 11th, however, my "Hell Week" began the weekend before that when it came to my attention that because of other projects and such, I had neglected to work on a film project for my Intro to Digital Filmmaking course. The film was due at the beginning of class the following Tuesday. Also due on Tuesday was a final mastered version of my song for my Digital Recording class which meant trying to fit in recording sessions in my school's recording studio as well as get my group together to film and edit our short film. Needless to say, that weekend was hell, but both projects ended up getting finished, albeit very near the wire.

My own personal hell was emphasized on Tuesday afternoon when I realized, during one of my other classes, that my final exam for Digital Recording was that night in class and I hadn't studied AT ALL!! This revelation was made about three or four hours before the exam. EEK!! Another revelation that hit me that day is that I hadn't spent anytime over the weekend working on my script for my playwriting course and the final draft (worth 70% of my mark) was due that Friday at noon. And then the real Hellish part; 3 projects (totally 80% of my mark) for my Film Studies class and my take home final for my Digital Filmmaking class were all due on Tuesday (today) at noon. In order to finish them all I would need to spread them out throughout the weekend. And on top of that I had an exam for my 400 level course (Media, Culture and Criticism at 2pm on Saturday) which I knew may actually be my hardest exam.

So here is what Hell week looked like to me:

Tuesday:

Short Film due at 11:40 (Digital Filmmaking)

Recording project due at 7 pm (Digital Recording)

Final Exam in Digital Recording

Wednesday:

Last day of classes.

Work on script

Thursday:

Work on script all day. (Began at 11:30 am, finished at 10 pm) I took a break for lunch around 1 pm, and a dinner break around 5:30.

Friday:

Script due at Noon.

Write take home final for film studies.

Study for COMM 411 exam

Saturday:

Get up at 10 to study for exam.

Studied until 1 pm.

Write exam.

Film short movie for Film Studies. (Film, edit and burn to DVD) Finished around 2 in the morning.

Sunday:

Work on Film journals for Film Studies. (end up with around 20 pages....I shocked myself)

Church

Monday:

Meet with Prof and show him finished film. (watch it here)

Work on take home exam for Digital Filmmaking for most of the day.

Take a break for friend's birthday dinner.

Come home and finish writing exam. Finished by 10:30.

BREATHE A SIGH OF RELIEF!!!

My friends were envious of the fact that all my exams were finished and it was only Tuesday. And seeing as how exam only begin on Friday at this point there had only been three days of exam so far, but what they didn't realize is that I had just as many exams as they did, but all of mine were lumped together. I couldn't take my time, stretch my studying out over several days because you have 2 days in between each exam. No. I had about 9 projects to do in a matter of a few days. And some of them were pretty extensive. Like the film that we managed to pull off in a few hours......that was a miracle.

As a third year, I have gone through 4 'hell weeks' before this one, but I have to say that this is the first one where I didn't know if I would actually make it through. My last exam that I wrote, I really had to force it. I just didn't know what to say. But now that it is over......SO GLAD!!!

And now that this semester is over, I only have three more to go. Let's hope I survive. :)