And that's one...

Mental Rehab Post #39
I've been told that sometimes, if you make the fear big enough, you over perpare and when the emergency comes it appears as if it was nothing. And if you're and idiot, well, you get a disaster. And heading into finals week, I didn't seem to be able to muster up enough excitement to say I'd had over prepared. So here we go.

Last night I took the first of my two exams for the semester. Well third, no really the fourth since my papers were really the grade for...you know what? Last night I took the first of my two exams for the semester.

My professor is tenured.

Those of you who've had a tenured professor, let that sink in a moment. My classmates and I have spent the last many weeks poring over his old tests - the ones with questions that go on for two pages and fact patterns that are interwoven with Elizabethean drama, real cases, various Opera plots and Three Stooges references. Yeah those. But he knows his stuff backwards, forwards and sideways. So you read, and hypothosize, mix and conjure and ...almost sounds like we're in wizard's school, don't it?

So last night, I sat down and with heart pounding in chest, throat dry and praying I didn't just look at the first page and blank out...and opened my test.

Do you know I ran out of time? I thought the last half of the test I would trying to find things to add for more points, my meager knowledge depleted and me grasping at metophorical straws. But that three hours went by so fast it was scary, and although old girl sitting behind me was typing away from the second we started like pro steno from the typing pool (old 50's reference) I figured three hours is forever, why rush? But then I got into it. This morning when I woke up I was still generating answers and arguements in my head. I typed for three hours and had more to say. I felt pretty damn good about it. Even the part I was weak on, I think I gave some pretty damn strong explanations!

Moments of great stress bring people together. Last night I also had dinner with nine of my classmates as we all prepped and sweated in the face of the looming monolith of education we were facing. You, know, the final. Only test all semseter. Basically...your grade. That monolith. Okay dinner was a mix of chicken sandwiches, hamburgers and pink ice cream, but as it was, them french fries were the best i ever had. We theorized and told ourselves test-ghost stories. One classmate went around the table trying to meet people he been class with but didn't know, which amounted to everyone at the table.

For some reason, everyone knows me already. I don't know why.

We gathered briefly outside after the test, against the advice of those shouted out test tips in the weeks proceeding, and marveled at our own brillance. Or stupidity. We'll know which in a few weeks.

I went home...ate some cold pizza and started getting together my notes for the next buzz saw of education.

Barkeep...two shots of that good whiskey. That will have to hold until next week.