‘Twas the Middle of Finals

From last December: Paper snowflakes made from class notes

‘Twas the middle of finals and I was concerned
about all the stuff I still hadn’t learned.
Books were piled all over the floor,
the desk, the bed, and blocking the door.
Ten pages of notes I held in my hand
but at least nine pages, I didn’t understand.
“Just wait till you see,” my brain said with a sneer,
“How your GPA will diminish this year.”
“Quiet, brain,” said I, “I’m trying to study
and you’re not making it easy here, buddy.”
But my brain didn’t think that plan sounded fun
so it came up with a totally different one.
“Here’s a thought,” said my mind in a tone of persuasion,
“I know what we can do until Christmas vacation!
Let’s watch stuff online, let’s make paper snowflakes,
let’s listen to music for our sanities’ sakes.
Let’s play scrabble and chess for hours on end
and do logic puzzles so we can pretend
that the things we are doing have intellectual value.
Doesn’t that sound like a good thing to do?”
Said I to my brain, “That would be a mistake.
Besides, I’ll have time for that stuff over the break.
But preparing for finals is what matters today.
If you’re not going to help me, then please go away.”
I shouldn’t have said it because my brain did agree
and went to play games all day without me,
while I kept on studying and then I did find
that it’s hard to do finals when I’ve lost my mind.

 

(This poem was written approximatly a year ago. I put it on youtube, but youtube isn’t the best medium for stuff without audio, so I’m bringing this poem back as a blog post. Sorry about the flawed meter. I didn’t put much effort into this; I made it up in my head while I was busy doing other stuff.)