Ah, April. The weather is finally staying warm, the trees and flowers on the South Oval are in full bloom, daylight lasts through dinnertime — and there’s no time to enjoy it because we’ve got too much to do.

With the memories of spring break and the fun and peace it brought still fresh in our minds, and finals, graduation and summer about six weeks away, it’s tempting to simply relax and try to coast. Or rather, that’s what we’d want to do. Alas, there is a downside to being in college, and it’s made perfectly clear in April. I speak, of course, of the absurd amounts of work for all classes due in April.

Attending classes is not an issue: we pay our hard-earned (or loaned) money for our professors’ time, and we should make the most out of our investment.

Midterms, however, are a drain on our free time. Most of them have hopefully been dealt with before spring break, but classes with multiple tests still plague us, forcing us to spend day and night cramming for those travesties.

Term papers and the like are even worse. These abominations take even more of what spare time we actually have and require us to stretch out an exhaustive amount of research over ten pages or more.

If these outrages were not sufficient, all matter of extracurricular activities further eat into our lives. Granted, we’ve most likely chosen to take up these activities, and they can serve as a great stress reliever for the other difficulties we must shoulder through this month, but the fact remains that we have less time for general leisure and laziness.

On top of everything I’ve mentioned so far, there’s still plenty of other things that could keep us from enjoying a relaxing month: Having a job, for example, takes away that much more time and can have adverse effects on a student’s sanity and emotional well-being if they’re in the wrong job.

Graduating seniors have more significant problems: We have to secure careers for ourselves after May or prepare for the necessary trials of grad school if taking that path. Meanwhile, apathy and senioritis creep up, forming a dual threat with the beautiful weather.

I suppose we knew what was in store when we enrolled in college. It will all pay off in the end when we have degrees and (hopefully) real jobs. We know that, and we’ve done all this before in previous semesters; we’ll certainly be able to do it again. If you get the chance, though, go outside and relax. Enjoy this weather while you can because it will be another hot Oklahoma summer before too long.

— AJ Lansdale, professional writing senior