“The stress of week’s finals: diminishing;
The projects, exams, and tests: finishing;
Semester: diminuent;
The summer: soon-imminent;
Commencement: approaching, distinguishing.”
The 29 April 2023 Twitter limerick is, most likely, self-explanatory. However, it is worth a few additional lines as the Spring 2024 semester likewise draws to a close.
“The stress of week’s finals: diminishing; /
The projects, exams, and tests: finishing…”
In the routine I’ve now used for several years with this website, the thirty poems generated for each April’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) match up reasonably well with the two fifteen-week semesters of the “next” academic year, making them logical topics to revisit in these brief essays. For instance, during this 2023-2024 academic year, I was glad to revisit the first half of the April 2023 NaPoWriMo sequence during Autumn 2023, and now to (nearly) finish the second half of the April 2023 sequence during Spring 2024.
We are currently in Finals Week for Spring 2024. While it is a hectic time, we’ve just passed the halfway point, so we are drawing near to the sense of “diminishing” stress that is commemorated in this poem.
“Semester: diminuent; /
The summer: soon-imminent; /
Commencement: approaching, distinguishing.”
The hours of the semester are dwindling; the academic summer break (even if it seems early compared to the seasonal calendar!) is imminent. The graduation ceremony– always a welcome, momentous occasion– is on the horizon.
Chemphasis 