THREE STOPS ALONG THE ROUTINE
Scattered around the world, we editors are tied together by a kind of fatigue that settles in near the end of the year: a heavy, repetitive rhythm where every campus sidewalk, fluorescent-lit desk, and lecture hall becomes a single, unending blur. We lock ourselves into routines just to get through the week, drifting between the crushing pressure to produce and the desperate need to switch off.
This column is an attempt to map that psychological exhaustion across three physical coordinates. Pulled directly from handwritten journals and interior confessionals, we track our harbours around campus: a spot to work, a momentary culinary comfort, and a quiet corner to break the monotony. Step inside the pages—you might just find a new sanctuary of your own.
Contributors:
1.
// STATE_01: THE GRIND
I’m quite spoiled for choice in this regard. I live only 15 minutes from campus, a singular subway ride away, and there are quite a few spots suitable for studying. I’ve been to a lot of them, though none at a regular frequency; you see, my actual go-to for “locking in” is just on the 5th floor of my apartment building.
It’s a shared space few people visit; quiet and liberally air-conditioned at around 18 degrees C, no matter the weather.
The 5th floor also includes the laundry room, so I prefer coming here when it's killing two birds with one stone: at least once a week while waiting for my clothes and/or sheets to wash and dry. Once the timer I set for the machines goes off, I pack up both my study materials and laundry to bring back to my room. There’s nothing quite like solitude and privacy, after all.
// STATE_02: little TREATs
I met my most reliable study buddy in the first semester. They can always be depended on to be quiet and unbothersome, yet a comforting presence that helps me focus whenever I need to finish an assignment while also getting a sweet treat for myself.
This study buddy of mine is a lesser albino snake at an establishment known as ARF Cafe, only about a 5 minute walk from my university campus. I’ve gone there so often now the owner knows me by face, and is always prepared to bring out my buddy to accompany me when I visit. The owner hasn’t named any of the reptiles kept at the cafe, citing how there’s “too many of them” as his reasoning, but has since accepted that I’ve named my little friend Butterscotch.
I don’t actually eat here very often, but every time I go I’ll order at least one drink: usually a charcoal latte (black sesame flavored, and for some reason I quite like the crunch of them between my teeth. The way they stain the edges of my mouth black isn’t as appreciated, but that’s an easy fix with a napkin anyway). They serve delectable waffle platters in a range of dessert flavors, and even a type of breakfast set, but I prefer to focus on just my computer screen.
// STATE_03: respite
It’s no surprise that I also prefer simply going back to my tiny residence whenever I need a break from anything. It’s certainly small at only 14 square meters, but it’s all I’ve needed for the past two semesters. Studying with only the hum of the ventilation and occasionally air conditioning serves me best for focusing.
While working around other people is also a way of holding myself accountable against procrastination or whatever else, I’ve found myself still unable to truly concentrate, especially in more public areas like the campus libraries. Sometimes, I prefer watching them instead.
2.
// STATE_03: respite
// STATE_03: respite
// STATE_02: a treat for me!
// timelapse
// state_01: the grind
Text Transcription: There is something wrong with my jaw. There is something wrong with my eyes. There is something inside - scratching, aching, pounding. Not a toothache, no. I wake up. Clenching my teeth, eyes dry and flaking. I have dreams of my teeth falling out of my mouth and my eyes rotting out of my sockets. I'm on my bed, in the lazy-studying position I've mastered – a pillow elevating my head, another elevating my laptop. This fills me with anxiety… I keep thinking about this Instagram reel I saw where a gamer realises he can no longer crane his neck back. Or the girl who woke up blind one day from cataracts. I need to quit my phone. But it's the only thing that makes my head go quiet. … I like café 3. It's objectively the worst restaurant on campus, maybe. That's what everyone else says. But the food is consistent - there's always something to eat. If nothing else, buttered toast and coffee. I don't need many fancy things. During exam season, all I needed were endless refills of coffee mixed with chocolate milk, butter on toast, and chocolate chips with fruit in my oatmeal. From 11 to 3 pm I would sit, in a little corner of safe 3, and type away. … I think my bed is the most comfortable place in the world. I do not accept constructive criticism because it's true. I love my mushroom lamp, growing all purple-blue. I love my posters, my pink fluffy pillows, my purple gnome at the end of the bed – the evil end, closest to the microwave; soaked with radiation. Most of all, I love feeling like a little bug in the mess of blankets, lost in a big, unforgiving world. … I've downloaded a blank space app on my phone. It's to decrease phone usage. I spent 30 minutes choosing a pretty wallpaper, and another 10 figuring out how to make the background transparent on the widgets. Then I edited my cover photo. I'm a victim of consumerism. It's part of what makes life bearable. Cute pens and cute notebooks and $7 lavendar lattes to make studying palatable. Staying awake in lecture is easier when Moomin is clicking with satisfaction against my knuckles, like a pet bird. Is that so bad? To feel like Tyler Durden (Edward Norton, not Brad Pitt)? I’m not even yearning to be saved, for a sexy stranger to bomb my apartment and whisk me into a life of liberation and debauchery? I'm quite okay where I am. What does that make me? Someone perfectly okay with floating along, like a plankton on the open sea... … There's a little corner table behind a column in the Martin Luther King Student Centre. It's hidden and feels like a secret cave. And at night, you can look out and see the campus. Lights, glimmering like stars. And at sunset the sun coats the whole space in orange- gold, as you sit there typing on your laptop with aesthetic wallpaper colour-coded to your notebook and pens: I love this school, I love taking notes, I love hearing the pen click, I love education, I love California! And at noon, the sun burns, turning you to a sweaty study mess, laptop screen unintelligible. … I’m lying in bed, the way I've learned how. I'm probably destroying my spine. I'm too tired to sit. I am tired, and I am frightened. Of it being worse. Of life being too much, of not passing exams. Of life being nothing but passing exams. Of me not minding life being all about passing exams. In exams, after all, there is a rubric. There is structure. There is safety and stability. Are you a coward? For wanting the easy way out? Hm. Well, that's a problem for after 3 am. And maybe by then you'll conclude there's nothing wrong with being a little boring bug, drifting on a river towards nowhere.
3.
At the harshest time of the semester, Boston was flaunting the nicest views we’ve seen since fall. The cherry blossom trees outside my red-brick dorm had seemingly blossomed overnight. Other trees on campus quickly followed suit, littering the ground with delicate petals that were quickly trampled into compost. So this is what the tour guides were talking about when they advertise Boston’s complete “four seasons.”
After four-hour study sessions at our shining poster-child data science building or the dingy, backrooms-style basement of Mugar library, I would return to ground level, see the blooming trees, and feel a mix of longing, gratitude, and dread.
It’s the weekend before finals.
My roommate, who had projects but no final exams, moved out early, leaving the room feeling spacious but empty. Friendships based on sitting side-by-side in lectures became abruptly long-distance as classes ended on an unceremonious Thursday. Nearly the entire undergraduate student body soundlessly withdrew into study rooms and dorm rooms and 24-hour study spaces, so that even Commonwealth Avenue, the longest and busiest street at the heart of campus, was suddenly drained of its usual morning rush. All that remained was the inconceivable task of stuffing a full semester’s worth of content in my brain and taking three, 120-minute exams over the course of three days. The perfect weather felt like an insult to injury. I wanted to go home.
Still, that final week of aggressive studying had a couple of respites.
One was the food I used to treat myself. I reasoned that since my intrinsic motivation was at an ATL (all time low, not Atlanta), I couldn’t lose anything by extrinsically rewarding myself with dining hall brownies, 6-dollar bubble tea (ouch), and a trip to Noodle Street.
Noodle Street is a Thai restaurant on Comm Ave. The restaurant serves a variety of Asian noodles, including pad thai, drunken noodle stir-fry, ramen, and udon. Depending on the day, the atmosphere ranges from quiet and homey to packed and lively. My go-to order is the Spicy Tonkatsu Udon. The spice level is just right (you can enjoy the slight spicy kick while retaining full feeling of your tongue), and the udon is a chewy, nostalgic alternative to its more popular cousin – ramen – which is served at countless restaurants around campus. Noodle Street’s prices are decent for eating out in Boston, though Boston’s prices in general still make me shudder when I mentally convert to NTD. Nevertheless, spending an hour at Noodle Street, chopsticks in hand and a fresh novel in the other, is a worthwhile expense in the midst of exam season.
// STATE_02: a little TREAT!
Spicy Tonkatsu Udon at Noodle Street
My dorm room, where I studied for most of the semester, had started to become a breeding ground for endless pacing and anxious, racing thoughts. Staring at the half-packed suitcases and duffel bags on my roommate’s old mattress, I chastised my past self for scheduling a 19-hour flight on the night of my last exam, which left just 3 hours after my exam to finish packing and carry my things to the UPS Student Storage Service (i.e. two guys chilling in a box truck parked on Buswell St). Every jacket, postcard, pair of shoes, and Tide Pod was a reminder that nothing in this room could stay—including me. I desperately needed somewhere else to study. This was what led me to discover the underappreciated study rooms of the Education Resource Center (ERC).
Located on the 5th floor of 100 Bay State Rd, these study rooms can be reserved for the low, low cost of simply handing your BU ID to the student working at the receptionist’s desk. Compared to the rows of study carrels in the library, the desks and chairs in the study rooms seemed relatively newer and less enclosed. Moreover, the option to close the door meant that I could play music (Bo Burnham, Chappell Roan, Doja Cat etc.) on speaker, stand up, and take a quick dance break without anyone batting an eye. I also took advantage of the whiteboard to write inductive proofs and scribble alien-looking doodles. These study rooms not only helped me focus but also reminded me that studying does not have to be a form of self-torture; it is the basis of learning how to learn outside the classroom.
// STATE_03: respite
But perhaps the most effective treatment for finals-related maladies was reaching out to my friends. Yearning for familiar faces, I texted my friends and asked to meet up. Though I studied by myself for 90% of finals week, those few hours of venting our shared concerns, teaching concepts to each other on the whiteboard, and grabbing overpriced convenience store ice cream gave me the boost to see this gosh-darned commitment to its end. Another generous friend from Northeastern offered to help me move out, and together we lugged the heavy bags to the storage truck with over an hour to spare.
The study period before finals is devoid of classes and the usual club activities, but it doesn’t have to be an isolating experience. I thought that studying was the only productive activity before finals, but nearing burnout helped me realize that the rests are just as important as the notes.
// STATE_01: the grind
Room 510, a reservable study room on the 5th floor of 100 Bay State Rd.
