Exam Day

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This morning I am proctoring a Social Foundations exam at the university where I�m presently working a short-term contract. The entire teacher�s college writes today, so it�s a big deal. This particular lecture hall is filled with just shy of 100 students, all of whom are enjoying various degrees of anxiety. The lone exception is a fellow I like to call Dude; tall and lanky, he wears his very nice clothing and dazzling smile with extreme ease. It would seem that his immediate concern this morning is to suave one of the prettier young ladies into having lunch with him after this is over.

The second student who caught my attention was Talks to Herself Girl. Her particular brand of vibe called out to me like an echo of myself from 10 years ago. Holding entire conversations with the invisible person suspended directly in front of her face, she is able to work through her initial displeasure with the set of the exam, to the point where she is able to then relax and dismantle the mental roadblocks her body�s adrenaline rush put up in the first place.

(Dude is now checking me out every few minutes. At first I thought he only needed Kleenex or a fresh #2 pencil, but no, I have caught his interest. Man, his head would probably explode if he knew that he was flirting across the room with an Old Lady�)

On my sporadic strolls around the room, I notice also where the Keeners are sitting. They grasp their pens and threaten to give themselves carpel-tunnel difficulties while creating elaborate graphs and diagrams. I was also a Keener, folks � my freakish hybrid of a girl who didn�t appreciate the long game but instead shortened her life through the ingestion of way too much bad coffee and late-night cram sessions managed to graduate third in her class. Heavens only knows to what horrific end I would have come had Red Bull been in stores then.

One hour and thirty-five minutes in, the room reeks of body odour, cologne, dill pickle chips, poor-quality perfume and desperation. One guy in the upper right has begun shuffling through his question booklet in some sort of OCD attempt to call upon The Deity of Exam Answers. I hope he�s successful.

Finally, all pencils down and all papers in. My reward for contributing to the cause: a small coffee and a pumpernickel bagel with cucumber cream cheese. Not bad for two hours of people-watching and writing a journal entry, huh?

Enjoy your weekend. (If you�re American, Dude! Cut back on the turkey! Where are you planning on putting it?)

Posted at 3:59 p.m.