It’s a dark and stormy night at the Knoll. The university president cowers in his bed, sheets pulled to his chin. His lackeys are posted at the windows. There’s slow, relentless banging at the doors. Rhythmic moans seep in through the windows. It’s “Night of the Living Dead College Students,” and the president just wet his bed.

“I’ve seen this before. They’re tired, they’re hungry,” a lackey whispers. “We don’t let them sleep. We make them go to class right till final exams. They’ve become zombies.”

The bedroom door flies open; the president loses his continence yet again. In pops fearless GSB President, power tie flailing heroically.

“I know what they want,” he declares. “My people have been working nonstop for months, and there’s no stopping before final exams. Students need a break before finals.”

“Let my people sleep,” GSB president proclaims.

“Sleep? That’s all?” the bedwetting president says. “Because we’ve got monsters. Should we unleash the monsters?”

From the shadows, two grotesque creatures step forth.

“Ra!” screams the one called Regent. “Tuition get bigger!”

“Not telling you where the university’s money goes is necessary and makes me feel better about myself,” whines Foundation, the less scary of the duo, really more frightening in that I’m-Bill-Gates-and-can-buy-your-soul way.

“No, we don’t need those two again,” says GSB President. “Students just need time to think before finals. Give us a week to prepare for finals and we’ll stop roaming the campus as zombies, hungry only for coffee grounds and professors’ brains.”

Thus it began – the myth that is Dead Week. It was intended, all those years ago, to provide a haven in the semester’s schedule – theoretically, it is a time with no meetings, no extra concerns. We call the week dead, supposedly to reflect how, other than focusing on our final exams, the campus is dead. But that definition is wrong. Dead wrong!

We still have to hold our own against schedules full of meetings, work and class. Nothing really halts for us, and by finals we’re all tired. Dead tired!

The weeks after fall break are so chaotic, as every professor crams in 600 more tidbits into our minds. It’s no wonder that as soon as finals are over, thousands of us run to get drunk. Dead drunk!

The idea of Dead Week wasn’t really to give students a week of nothing, I know. Classes still meet, assignments can still be due – we can even still have tests during Dead Week. Clubs aren’t supposed to meet, but some organizations can’t just up and take a week off – certain daily publications, for example. Movers and shakers are still supposed to be responsible and very much alive during Dead Week.

This is all well and good – give us projects, give us exams, give us cattle prods and tell us to jam it in our – well, the point is, we’re going to jump through the hoops anyway. But stop this nonsense about having Dead Week to prepare for finals. There’s no stopping between the last week classes meet and the following five-day field trip to the brain slaughterhouse.

At Washington University in St. Louis, students have a “reading week.” Classes ended Dec. 4 this semester and finals are held between Dec. 10 and Dec. 17. They’re given a chance to catch up and review, without the worry of other class obligations. How novel.

Tulane University in New Orleans boasts a similar system, and final exams are spread over two weeks, a clever way not only to give students more time to prepare during a spread-out schedule, but a way to dodge the possibility of taking six exams in three days.

Speaking of – Why did we ask the Sphinx to design our finals schedule?

“If the first contact hour of your 2:30 class is 2 p.m., then your final is 5:07 to 7:09 a.m. Friday, unless your Monday 9 a.m. recitation is your first contact hour, which means your final will be during the dawning of a blue moon on the fourteenth chime of the Campanile on the Day of the Cyclone.”

We should get a day off just to review the damn Rubick’s Cube of a grid. I even know students who have missed final exams because they couldn’t decipher the code in time, though something tells me these are the kids who aren’t exactly stomachs-a-flutter during the exams – they probably wouldn’t be setting the curve for the course if 17 drunk monkeys with sharpened No. 2’s were let loose on the exams.

We don’t need to be babied before our finals. College kids like things long and hard. But Dead Week is anything but dead, anything but this magical week sans meetings that gives us time to prepare. And come finals, we’re anything but alive.

Cavan Reagan is a junior in journalism and mass communication and English from Bellevue, Neb. He is the research assistant for the Daily.