Finals Week

It is finals week. Here at the UofM, our offices are very quiet. On the home front, my husband spends copious hours cooped up in his study. I have made a little pact with myself to keep the house clean, the laundry done, and the kitchen cookin' for the next two weeks, just to ease his load a bit. My grad school days are only a short year and a half behind me, so I vividly remember how an empty pantry, absence of clean clothes, or scattered home made my stress level escalate during a demanding few weeks. (I cured that stress by single-handedly polishing off a 9x13 pan of brownies in the two days leading up to my final capstone/thesis presentation. True story. Healthy for body and mind, no? I don't want Jonathan to reach that low!)

As I was walking across campus to the office this morning, the harsh cold wind reminded me of one of my funniest finals memories. Funny now, yes, but then? Awful.

It was the end of the first semester of my freshman year at OBU. I had been struggling through College Algebra all semester (half because I hate math, half because I was a college freshman with better things to do!). That course was my first final of my first-ever college final exam week. Monday morning, 8 a.m. I stayed up late studying, calling my dad in tears at one point out of sheer frustration, and decided to get up early the next morning to firm up a few concepts that were still a bit shaky in my mind.

I woke up the next morning, looked at the clock... 8:45 a.m.

I stood up in the center of my little WMU 417, jaw gaping in utter horror for a few silent moments before the screams began to pierce the quiet morning.

In complete panic mode, I was concerned enough to squeeze a glob of toothpaste in my mouth, throw a coat on over my pajamas, and grab my backpack.

Down the 4th floor hallway of WMU...Down the four flights of stair...Out the side door of the building into the December cold.

That's when the tears started.

I ran from WMU to Shawnee Hall, face red and blotchy, tears streaming, snot flowing.

By the time I reached my classroom it was about 9 a.m., only 30 minutes left in the exam block. I threw open the door to the classroom with a fervor that a friend later told me resembled Kramer's famous entrances on Seinfeld. With a look of pity, my grandma of a professor looked up with a smile, "I thought you'd never come!"

I took the exam, sniveling and sniffling the entire way through. Needless to say, I didn't do so hot. It was the only C I ever received on my transcript. But it made a darn good story.

So to all of you final exam takers out there, a word from experience: Set two alarms, sleep with your clothes on (and maybe just a dab of lip gloss), and be sure to stick a piece of gum in your pocket before you turn out the light.