Despite an effort to stay true to sound Biblical hermeneutics, I had to take the verse that I supplied at the top out of any real context to make it work for what I am about to write. When it stands alone, though, this half-verse seems to sum up everything about the warped sense of living that final exams bring about. The images that are evoked are too obvious to pass over, and thus I write of The Last Days (of the semester).

It is time; shudder and weep, gnash thy teeth, oh ye of little studying skills. Thy finals await thee.

There is a sense of panic on campus in these last days, panic and a feeling of burnout that lends itself as much to fatalism as it does to studying. If there is any time in the semester that apocalyptic readings are appropriate, it is now, and there are those who look to the skies with an almost eschatological longing, wishing that this time of Great Tribulation was over and that a new dispensation was dawning.

Among these hopefuls, however, I see zombies: sleep-deprived individuals whose lives have only been prolonged by cigarettes, coffee, and convenience store speed. They wander in and out of their last tests as if they were the living dead, determined to make one final, futile effort at passing. These are the damned, and in them there is no hope; they spent their semester partying and playing video-games, going to dance clubs and sleeping through class–the punishment that will be meted them will be just and deserved.

There are others that may be confused with those who are cursed, but nay, instead of being lost souls, they are true Tribulation Saints. Usually science or history majors, I see these mangled and broken bodies dragging themselves triumphantly from the classroom, smiling through their broken teeth and sleep-deprived, yellowed eyes, making a “V” for victory with their crooked and smashed fingers. These saints have endured to the end; they have made their election sure; they have persevered. A semester of studying in their dorms and sleeping in the library has finally paid off, and they can leave their upper-levels with the words “Well done, good and faithful student” reverberating in their ears.

Not forgotten are the saints who have not had to endure persecution, and the damned who were unaware of their impending doom. The latter do not realize that they have not done enough, that their faith in themselves and their memories of lecture can and will not save them; the former have patiently plodded through their semester, learning and absorbing what was necessary, knowing when it was okey to nod off in class and when it was necessary to take notes– their joy will be made complete, while their compatriots will be forced to look elsewhere for scholarships.

Finally, there are the deathbed conversions; these are students who, like the tares of the parable, flourished for a while, but then decided to sleep in or skip class until their grades withered into the dust. These, unlike the doomed miscreants who have no hope, suddenly become devout, praying to any and every deity that their friends took good notes and bothered to finish the study guide. Some of these last-minute converts are sincere and will complete the race set before them, but many are falsely pious and will receive back a test that says, “I did not know you and you did not know the answers. Depart from me. F.”