Here we are, twisting, scraping and clawing our way to the end of the semester.

Boy, does the time fly by. It seems like just the other day we were getting back from Christmas break, ready to brave the winter and another semester.

Now, as we sit here realizing that finals week is just around the corner and we haven’t opened a book since before spring break, we think about all the things we have or haven’t done.

The classified section painfully counts down the final days of the semester. And I sit there every day thinking, “How am I going to fit all of the things I have to do in these dwindling days?”

Today we sit in class, still remembering some of the good times over the weekend: the friends, the sights, the sounds and maybe some cocktails.

We wish we could relive parts of the weekend over and over. But reality slaps us in the face and we are forced to try to focus on these last few weeks.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who wants to slide through the rest of the semester on a couch watching soap operas or piling up large stacks of rented movies that stand no chance of returning to the video store on time — rewound or not.

Yep. I want to just sit there with a bag of chips, maybe some salsa dip, and let the cushions of the couch caress and mold to my body.

Oh, just to crawl under a heating blanket and forget that we have class and get lost in the fine acting of Pauly Shore. Or, perhaps, submerse myself in the trials, tribulations and turmoil of “General Hospital.”

Even now as I am writing this and the outside world is a drab water-color gray, I think the couch sounds more and more inviting.

But you can’t live in this utopia. You must finish out the semester trying desperately to avoid the beckonings of the couch that whispers our name in the evening.

It enticing you with the half eaten bag of Doritos and the remote control that will allow you to stay almost entirely motionless, expelling as little energy as possible.

You look away only to peer down and see that you are still wearing your most comfortable sweatpants. They, like the couch, have an all to familiar feel and long to be horizontal.

But, my friends, don’t succumb to this urge quite yet.

Fight the couch.

Think about the midterm you got in that class or that last test you failed.

Think about the term paper, or the engineering project.

Because there is only a couple more weeks of classes, tests, papers and projects. Then, it is summer.

Then, you can live on the couch, bathe in the sun and let your mind waste away for the next few months.

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J.R. Grant is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Ohio.