Building a snowman that represents finals week stress.
BUILDING A SNOWMAN THAT REPRESENTS FINALS WEEK STRESS.
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Winter descends on our campuses with a peculiar magic, often coinciding with that unique blend of dread and determination known as finals week. While we’ve all got our stories about Primal Scream, or whispered tales of societies we may or may not know, there’s a quieter, more tangible tradition that often goes unremarked: the weather-based ritual of the finals week snowman. It’s not about building a picture-perfect figure. Oh no. This is an effigy of anxiety, a frozen monument to sleepless nights and caffeine-fueled study sessions.
Remember huddling against the biting wind, hands numb, rolling that first snowball? Was it a massive base representing the crushing weight of your thesis, or a tiny, precarious head balancing precariously on top, mirroring your own sanity? We piled on the snow, each packed layer a little piece of our stress, our hopes, our desperate need for a break. Maybe it got a twig for a pencil, or a pair of glasses fashioned from stray wire, silently screaming a universal truth: "I am overwhelmed, but I am still here." It’s a shared, unspoken joke, a momentary, physical release from the intellectual pressure cooker. You’d walk past these amateur ice sculptures, a silent nod of understanding passing between you and the invisible artist. A tradition both loved for its defiant absurdity and hated for what it represented – the relentless grind. Yet, looking back, these bizarre snow figures become a strangely comforting symbol of resilience and camaraderie.
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