The finals antics of Lauren Razzore '98 and her friends are legendary, according to Jenny Daley '99. Dance parties at 3 am, floor hockey in the wee hours, and snowball fights on the green are among the group's hallmarks. My friend Andrea Starrett '98 had a Beowulf final, so she took one of those Atkins Farms finals bags and made it into a helmet and wrote Andrea-wulf on it. For a Timon of Athens final we put on signs with the characters' names and wore them for five days. Daley herself is fond of wearing a single outfit throughout exam period, a tradition learned from Razzore.
Some students go beyond wearing basic black, choosing to wear nothing at all.
Karissa L. Keleher '01 recalls that during finals last year, she and friends went out to play in the mud late at night. The energy required for such antics leads to changes in diet during exams. It is almost universal for students' junk food and caffeine consumption to increase during finals, but Carolyn Pettigrew '02 centers her rituals around breakfast. My mom used to make me these great brain-food breakfasts. I start sleeping with my books, and all my clothes on, because I usually fall asleep while studying.