I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but when finals week rears its ugly head around my house it is not always the happiest of moments.

As I sit in front of this keyboard with my fingers moving freely and swiftly across the plastic keys (OK, maybe not too swiftly), I think to myself, “Sure this is a finals edition, but the last thing I really want to write about is my damn finals.”

So with this opportunity, I would like to take you, my fellow students, on a retrospective trek of a semester gone by.

OK, let us think back to August, the first week of school.

Yeah, you got big plans for this semester don’t you? Gonna get all As, to hell with anything else. No women no men (depending on what your preference is).

No going to the bars before Friday night even then you only go for a few hours. And above all, no getting drunk, you know what happens then.

Now, by Tuesday of the first week you are already thinking about the girl who sat in front of you in your Biology 109 class. Hitting the books early and often.

Please, are you crazy or something? That idea goes out the proverbial window when all your boys come by and start talking about Sheila, Tracy, Karen, Monique and all the other girls.

Talking about who did what with whom, who got pregnant, fat, married or just didn’t come back this semester.

By now you are telling yourself, “This is only the first week, I can slack off this week since nothing is really gonna happen ’til next week anyway.” Smooth move Ex-Lax. This is a classic bonehead mistake, made by classic boneheads everywhere.

When weeks two and three roll around, homework starts to pile up and midterms are only a week and a half away.

You start thinking of all the new, neat and clever ways to screw up your professors’ names.

You’re chillin and eating hot wings at People’s by Friday at 2 p.m., which isn’t an unreasonable prospect except that your last class isn’t over until 3 p.m.

Before you know it midterms are here, you’re up all night studying for that exam or trying to finish that paper you have known about since Labor Day.

By now you are having a rum and Coke with those hot wings instead of just a Coke. Remember all those plans you made in week one?

Well they start to dissolve with the Alka-Seltzer you take the next morning.

Week Six: Now you are going out on Wednesday and Thursday nights.

When that little white envelope comes in the mailbox you realize that maybe you should call about that Stat 104 tutor as soon as possible.

As for the girl from your 109 class? Well, let’s just say that what you thought was Filet Mignon turned out to be grilled cheese.

Week Seven: Why is it that teachers always have all their assignments due right before Thanksgiving break?

Same reason that students always wait ’til the week before Thanksgiving to do the assignments, we’re idiots, nincompoops, morons, airheads and gluttons for punishment.

Whew! Thanksgiving is finally here. Time for the 5 Rs: rest, relaxation, rejuvenation, replenishment, and robust plates of turkey and dressing.

Forget about school and make plans about how to still salvage the semester.

Week eight: You wonder if maybe all those reports about excessive turkey consumption affecting your sexual desires are true, when some really, un, un, unattractive girl starts making passes at you.

Instead of refusing, and being the stud that you are you field all her advances like Roberto Alomar on a double play.

You wake up in the morning and realize that maybe that whole escapade was just the alcohol talking, that is until Garbage Pail Kid, Messy Maggie brings you breakfast wearing the shirt you wore last night.

Dead Week: I know why they call this dead week, ’cause it’s the week when you realize that if you don’t put up some big numbers on your finals, Deceased will be your new middle name.

So you study your butt off, hour after hour, day after day. The phone keeps ringing, most of the time it’s her royal messiness, and you thank god for the caller ID.

This is the week you realize Buck Night at W.A.S. and reading the last three acts of Antony and Cleopatra don’t really mix too well.

Finals Week: The end of the madness. You don’t figure out your Finals schedule until Sunday night. Monday morning you realize that 109 test is comprehensive, not only on the last 5 chapters.

You have three finals on Wednesday. Your imminently approaching death is postponed until Friday at noon with the Stat 104 final.

Amazingly you make it through the week, barely.

Alive and with all your important parts still in place (they only feel like they are missing), you finally get your grades.

“Hey I didn’t do too bad, but I know I could have done better,” you tell yourself. “That’s okay I’ll do a thousand times better next semester.

“I got a plan,” you say. Yeah right, and all Toni Braxton’s sisters are fine.