Before the dead day parties, so conveniently timed to overlap with Cinco de Mayo, begin, give your liver a moment’s rest while you look back on the semester.

Remember how, at the end of winter break, you told yourself you’d ace all your classes and get a 4.0 grade point average? You even braved the crowd at the bookstore and actually bought the required texts this semester.

Then the books sat, unopened, without a crack in the spine. You shoved them under your bed to collect dust and occasionally crush spiders until you tried to sell them back for a fraction of their original price.

Oh, well. It was the thought that counted.

Like the conclusion of anything, the end of the semester demands some quiet reflection. There is no need for another rehashing of the semester’s most significant happenings, from things that everyone cared about (the Jan. 8 tragedy) to things that no one cared about (the ASUA presidential election debacle). But you should pause for a second. Re-evaluate what it took to get where you are now.

Whether you just finished your last semester or you’re looking forward to at least another six of them, examine all the goals you set for yourself a few months ago. Did you accomplish any of them? Did you even bother to set any?

In the Jan. 12 issue of the Daily Wildcat, during the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 8 shooting that wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and many others, the Daily Wildcat editorial board wrote that: “”The most important thing we can do is move forward from this moment by recognizing our duty to be kind, to be humble, to work together and to work toward something larger than our differences and ourselves.””

Even now, when life has returned to normalcy and we’re back to just being snarky and fed up with the Associated Students of the University of Arizona, we hope it’s still true.

Did you spend your semester working toward something beyond Thirsty Thursday and the weekend? What did you have an impact on, and whom did you make an impression on? What did you do that mattered?

Furthermore, did you at least try?

Remember that honors aren’t necessarily easily recognized. You don’t get awards for everything, and not all achievements are tangible.

You should be able to end every semester with pride. Even if you didn’t accomplish everything you meant to, you should have had good intentions to the very end. And that’s something to drink to.

— Editorials are determined by the Daily Wildcat editorial board and written by one of its members. They are Kristina Bui, Ken Contrata, Michelle A. Monroe and Heather Price-Wright. They can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.