By Jessica Brondo
I’m writing this post on the first utterly fantastic spring/summer day in NYC, and while I’m inside working, the quick trips outside just put an instantaneous smile on my face. However, this past weekend was not so dandy. If you’re anywhere near New York (or weather.com), you’ll know that we’ve been having the worst spring imaginable with colder than normal temperatures and RAIN, which makes doing anything just that much more tedious. Now, I’ve been away every weekend since late April for work and various travel plans, so I really feel like a chicken with my head cut off most of the time between packing and unpacking, adjusting to time zones, and trying to stay healthy on the road. This past weekend, on my way out of the city, it began to DOWNPOUR just as I walked out of my building, so I waited for 15 minutes for a cab to run an errand before heading to my car. Then walking out of the store, I waited/walked 25 minutes in search of a cab in a continuous downpour, awkwardly toting 4 bags, a tennis racquet, and an umbrella….until I finally see a cab with its light on, so I left my bags alone for a second to go grab the door, and then WHACK! my bags fell 3 inches deep into a dirty city water puddle and someone stole my cab. No one bothered to help me, nada! I felt like giving up (and crying) to say the least, which is the sentiment I’ve been getting from most of my students these days.
Junior year is definitely a b*tch of a year (to put it bluntly). Between AP exams, tons of state exams, the SAT, ACT, SAT II exams, finals, and probably an important activity, job, or sport taking up a big chunk of your time, I can only imagine (especially because I felt this way a short 12 years ago) the impending feeling of just saying screw it and giving up. BUT you CANNOT do that. Seriously. I know how much it sucks right now for you guys especially on nice days like today when all you want to be doing is hanging outside with your friends, but I want you to take a moment to think about the big picture.
Most of you will be finished with school within a month, at most, and then you’ll have an entire summer to frolick in the sunshine and play in someone’s pool, but these next few weeks are SO CRUCIAL you have no idea. You all know you want to go to a great school, and you don’t want a couple of weeks of studying to hold you back from getting into your dream school. These tests are the most important tests in terms of you college applications, so it is absolutely imperative that you just suck it up and push on through. Here are some tips to getting through these next couple of weeks:
1. Find someone to talk to who REALLY motivates you and can break things down for you when they’re getting overwhelming.
2. Take Friday night off…..after a crazy week of studying, you need a night to just kick it with your friends. You deserve it.
3. Buy a massive whiteboard and make a big chart. The column headings should be the 6 days of the week (assuming you’re taking Fridays off) and then the rows should be your different subjects. You should set a study goal for each night.
4. Get a study guide from your teacher and divide it by the number of days you have to study so that you’re not stuck cramming the night before the test (and then add it to the whiteboard from #3).
5. Set a reward for yourself. Do something nice for yourself after all your finals are done to reward yourself for pushing through!!!
I know how much this really sucks (I felt the same way when I was in high school), and felt like throwing in the towel last weekend, but after my call, I realized that I just needed to take a breath and after a 40 minute walk/subway ride/walk, it felt great to finally get in my car and karaoke all the way out to Long Island (clearly my reward 
What are some of your tips/horror stories for getting through finals? I’d love to hear from you…..
