For many of you, it is quickly becoming apparent that finals are right around the proverbial corner.  For the rest of you, consider this your fair warning.  A year ago, I was totally stressing out about the first finals round of my college career.  This, I thought, would be it. The jig would be up. I would be discovered for the fraud I was.  Game over. I’ve skated by for 19 years and finally people would figure it out: I am not ‘college material.’ Well, boy, did I prove them wrong … just kidding, I skated by for another whole year.  Lucky for you all, I am bringing my personal touch to finals week with my favorite thing: free bookstore coffee music (duh, it’s a music column).  My personal savior, the auditory bliss that is the music that fuels finals success … a play in three acts.

Prelude: Inspirational Speeches — Self-explanatory. You could go with this approach, this approach or this approach. (I totally got choked up watching these.)

Act I: The Pump Up — For those of you who are in the know, Wednesday night is final production night for The Kenyon Collegian. Editors are hard at work making their sections look pretty and read pretty.  This is also a time for “Late Night Collegianing,” the act of staying past 10:00 p.m. and going slightly off one’s rocker.  Forthose who have never been a part of this madness, this is every Wednesday.

“Late Night Collegianing” is a weekly occurrence marked by gossiping, yelling and music.  One of the greatest playlists ever formed (better than the N’Sync tribute CD you probably hide under your mattress) was created by none other than our former opinions editor, Lindsay Means.  Here, in a truncated form, is the ’80s Pump-Up playlist, the perfect list of ballads to get you in the mood (not that mood … too crude?).

• Always – Erasure
• Higher and Higher – Eric Werden (Detective Stabler FTW)
• Chariots Of Fire – Vangelis
• Hungry Eyes – Eric Carmen
• Right Now – Van Halen
• Never – Moving Pictures
• You’re The Best Around – Joe Esposito
• Highway To The Danger Zone – Kenny Loggins
• Hungry Like The Wolf – Duran Duran
• Winner Takes It All – Sammy Hagar

Act II: The Gauntlet — Now that you have your blood pumping and you’re done complaining to your roomie about how you’re just going to ‘absolutely die,’ it’s time to do some actual work.  For many people, silence is the key, but if you are like me, music is the key to the absorption of raw information. In that case, you’ll need something to break the stifling quiet without muddling your sponge-like grey matter.  I have one word for you … instrumentals.  Instrumentals are great study background music if you can’t have your precious mind invaded by the witticism of the Billboard Top 40 (whoops, forgot I was at Kenyon and that The Thrill caters to the Horn Gallery, so what I meant to say was Best New Music).  Anyway, all hipster-bashing aside, instrumentals are going to be so in-style this finals week if I have anything to say about it.

• Ghostwriter – RJD2
• Eastern Standard Time – The Skatalites
• Rauncy – Bill Justis
• Surf Ride – The Lively Ones
• All Of Me – Jon Schmidt
• Walk With Me (Instrumental) – RJD2
• Sleep Walk – Richie Valens
• Ah-Leu-Cha – Miles Davis
• Shook Ones Prt. 2 – Mobb Deep
• Training Montage – Vince DiCola (This could have gone on the first list-as it was on the playlist)

Act III: You’re On Break! — Get at me! You’re done. You’re packed and ready to go. Time to party down and celebrate the end of another semester at Kenyon: you are now one semester closer to graduating, and hey, it looks like you passed.  You have every reason to relish the fact that you have once again proved that you can actually do college work!  There is only one song that can sum this feeling up.  Are we having fun yet?