If you’re anything like me, even the thought of sun, sand or spending a week away from the frozen tundra we trudge through every day isn’t enough to distract you from the fact that it’s midterm week.

I know I won’t start getting excited until about 5 p.m. on Thursday night. Until then, it’s paper, test, paper, test and about 3,000 Facebook status updates stating: “Done with exams!,” “One down, two to go!,” “One more paper and I’m free!,” etc.

So, in the spirit of midterm week, I’ve compiled a small collection of unlikely success stories to boost your spirits and give you something other than your study guide to look at moments before taking an exam. Enjoy, and remember the ever relevant, wise words of the Brits: Keep calm and carry on.

Justin Bieber’s hair: Well the Biebs has done it again. The minute I get cool enough to fetch $40,668 for a lock of hair, I’ll really know I’ve made it.

After Bieber gave a lock of hair to Ellen DeGeneres as a gift on her show, she turned around and sold it on eBay. Clearly, the woman has her priorities all mixed up.

Those lovely brown locks were quickly snatched up, undoubtedly, by some adoring young fan’s father’s PayPal account, and all $40,668 of adoration will be donated to an animal rescue organization in California. Proof that if your brains can’t get you that A on your biology exam, you can always turn to your amazingly attractive hair to get you through life.

The chef who can’t taste his own creations: Grant Achatz, head chef at the posh Alinea restaurant in Chicago, lost his ability to taste in 2007 when he was diagnosed with stage four tongue cancer. The poor guy was offered only two options: have his tongue cut out and replaced with another muscle from his body or to undergo extreme chemotherapy that would essentially destroy his taste buds and esophagus.

He chose the latter, and as a result, completely lost his sense of taste. But this didn’t stop Achatz from doing what he loves. He kept his restaurant open, and now his cancer is in remission, slowly allowing him to get some basic tastes back.

Now he has a book, “Life, on the Line,” and plans in the works to open another restaurant in Chicago. It’s proof that no matter what setbacks you face, whether it is a lower than expected grade on that stats test, or a paper with a million red pen marks, you can’t let them get to you.

A vending machine with killer customer service: It looks like those smiling faces that work at airport newsstands and convenience stores are being phased out and replaced with a newer computer model.

One such vending machine in Japan uses facial-recognition software to make suggestions to customers based on age and gender, according to National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. Self-service vending machines no longer only offer the typical M&M’s and Diet Coke, they now include everything from swimsuits to bottles of wine, and even live crabs to be brought home and boiled for dinner.

Although most would agree that replacing living, breathing organisms with pieces of machinery is hardly a success, nobody can deny that these machines prove that we’re pretty smart creatures. And you are too.

Angry Birds: We all know the game. We may not be proud of it, but we all know it.

Who could have ever predicted that sling-shotting birds at a bunch of grouchy pigs with mustaches could be so addictive? And so successful. For $0.99, it’s a completely financially justifiable waste of time.

But it’s no longer just about the game. It’s also about the plush toys, the board game, full version video games in the works and a recent partnership with Twentieth Century Fox. It is the first game of its kind to go completely mainstream, and it’s just a bunch of birds trying to defend their territory. It’s proof that no matter how ridiculous your thesis for that English paper, it could make you millions one day.