April is the worst month of the year, if you’re in still in school. Coming back to school in August is far less excruciating to deal with than the month of April.

The light is not at the end of the tunnel in August. The freedom of summertime and barefoot adventures does not await you in August.

By April, we faintly see the lift of MWF and TR constraints just off in the distance waiting for the time when you can no longer feel haunted at 7 a.m.

April is like the awful-smelling person in front of you in the movie theatre who you can’t escape for a three-hour Christopher Nolan film. It feels like never-ending subtle torture.

April is the month where freedom and sunshine and trips to anywhere-but-here are just out of reach. You might still have that final project, that portfolio, that big test in the class you don’t care about at all.

April is where the sun is hot in the day, yet it’s still too cold at night. Where it almost feels like summer, but the chance of a hailstorm still lingers.

If your summer plans are locked down or you got that internship or you have that summer job or you’re planning on laying out on the beaches in Fiji, you’re ready for April to be over.

April is the worst for professors and students – and puppies, just ’cause. You freak out about your grades, you try to finish projects and tie up loose ends, you beg for any sort of extra credit and scramble to calculate all the percentages of categories of work that you’ve turned in.

Any chance of estimating your grade for the semester is lost by doubts and rampant insecurities that maybe your mental math skill isn’t as good as you think it is.

There is no solution to April but to just trudge through it and resist the urge to count the days until graduation or the day of your last final. May 9 will come regardless of you checking your countdown app.

So April, here’s to you, ruining lives, hopes and dreams, one student at a time.