Last week I finally finished up my last round of midterms… In no way is the hard work over, but at least now I have more time to reply to those emails that may have piled up, hit the gym, and catch up with those friends who have been saying “Hey! I haven’t seen you in a while!” (even though it’s only been like a week). So how to get through midterm season? And how to recover from it? Here are a few of my favorite thoughts:
1. Sleep. The most obvious way to re-charge your batteries, but so often neglected for more thrilling and exciting endeavors. Nothing will fuel you for the rest of the semester like crashing at 8:30pm and letting your alarm take the night off too.
2. Eat at a fancy restaurant. Dress up, find somewhere new, or revisit an old favorite. I love the restaurants at LA Live, because it’s so close to campus, but downtown has great options too. I went to dinner at Blue Cow Kitchen a couple weeks ago, and brunch at Grub (near the Grove) last weekend. So delicious, and yet so necessary to fuel a midterm-ready brain.
LA Live! So many great restaurants, live music venues, and other sources of entertainment.
3. Go shopping! Enough said. For great options in the LA area, check out Caitlin’s post about it! Note: When it comes to Retail Therapy, Window-Shopping can be just as effective as actually spending money.
4.Get back in your old habits. With midterms out of the way, I’ll start calling my mom more often, catching up with my roommate again, and re-visit to the gym with my semi-regular gym buddy.
The USC Lyon Recreation Center, a.k.a. “The Gym.”
5. Find new study spots. All week, when I was studying for my mechanical engineering classes, I was in the Science & Engineering Library. Now it’s time to visit Doheny Library (and/or the under-utilized Architecture Library) as I put stress in the past. See Greg’s post for more awesome study spaces.
The USC Science & Engineering Library. (I stole this picture from Greg’s post… shh!)
6. Catch up on seasons of [Your Favorite TV Show Here]. For me, that means it’s time to see what’s happening on the Big Bang Theory…
Midterms aren’t always so bad, but it can be rough when you have more than one in a week! It’s important to do well on all of them, and recover in ways that don’t include too many coffee runs. Of course, there are many other ways to de-stress in LA, like going to the beach, going on a run, going hiking, going to concerts, seeing a play, etc… Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to do those this week!
