Turning up on a Tuesday

As midterms approach, I face Janet while she sits with a cool refreshing beer in her hand. The conversations of students at the Gasthaus are inaudible, but it was still too loud for us to hear one another without raising our voices. With stress being piled on, I ask her as I fixate my eyes at the beer about why she was drinking. “Cause drinking a beer is nice and it helps you relax.” I go on to ask if it was because of stress? “Yes, partially. It’s hard to focus. I have to go to work..I have classes,” she says. She continues about balancing life as we sit in the dimly-lit restaurant, the voices of stressed students drown us out.