Testing Woes

When taking an exam there is nothing worse than…

…sitting in front of a leg shaker. It starts with a slow rumble and before you know it, it feels like you are in the middle of an earthquake. Frantically you look around to see what is going on when out of the corner of your eye you see behind you, your neighbors knee bouncing up and down like there is no tomorrow. Seriously? Are you purposefully trying to sabotage my bubble sheet? Hold still!

…having to go to the bathroom (maybe that’s why there are leg shakers?)

…having Cadbury eggs in your back pack. At first you start out by telling yourself “Every 50 questions I will reward myself with one Cadbury egg.” But before you know it you are rewarding yourself with one Cadbury egg per question and feeling sick as a dog by the time you reach question 70.

…sitting in front of a sickie. Most the time I feel sorry for those who are ill during finals week; other times I just feel incredibly bothered. I know, how rude of me, right? But as much as I love feeling someone coughing behind me and interrupting my thought process with hacking noises and sniffles, I think I’d rather take a test without them.

…realizing you still have your to-do list written all over your hand. “Oh no!” you think, “It totally looks like I’m cheating.” Gulp. Frantically you begin licking your fingers and trying to rub “pay rent” off your hand, when you see a testing center worker eying you from the back. “Shoot, now they think I am wiping away evidence. I promise it’s just my to-do list!” Then, after all that panic, you come up with the ridiculous solution to just sit on your hand the whole rest of the test in order to avoid the situation all together.

…filling in the last bubble on the 4^th column (each column has 25 questions each, in case you were wondering) and realizing you still have 2 more columns to go.

…getting a brain cramp. You can see exactly where that blasted answer is on your notes but it’s like your brain has turned against you and refuses to let you recall what you had written down in that spot you can envision oh-so-perfectly. How rude.

…sitting by an air-conditioning vent; cold air blowing up your pants and shirt, test flopping around everywhere, goose bumps pricking your arms and freshly shaved legs, and scratch paper blowing away. There is nothing ideal about that situation.

Oh the woes of test taking.

On the other hand, there is nothing better than…

…taking your last final of the semester and walking out of the testing center feeling light as a feather.

In a few hours, that’s going to be me. Hurrah!

quack quack

“Rise and shout, the cougars are out.”

So are the ducks.

Not to demean the ever-so-fierce cougar mascot that BYU is so proud of, but sometimes I wonder if a duck would be a more appropriate mascot. I mean, they are all over the place on this campus. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stumbled upon a duck while walking to class. They can be found sun bathing on the grass, gathering around puddles, and scavenging left over crumbs at lunch time. Come spring, if you close your eyes and listen, you can hear them quacking in the distance.

Some BYU students even speak duck. Just the other day I was walking to my Physiology class and I looked over to my right on the neighboring sidewalk and saw a boy, hands on hips, staring at the fowl near his feet. The duck was staring at said boy when it let out a loud “quack”. Then, to my surprise, do you know what the boy did? He quacked back.

Did you know that BYU has a duck pond? It’s true, and every BYU student is full aware of it. Mostly I’m just fully aware that it smells really bad. But it does indeed exist.

AND to add to this plethora of duck 411, BYU students are full of everything-you-need-to-know-about-ducks information. And I quote, “Did you know that duck’s quacks don’t echo?” Yes. I overheard a student say this just the other day.

Now with finals looming in just over 1 day, students are starting to lose their minds. They study into the wee hours of the night; they wear pajamas and sweats and don’t bother to keep tidy; they are cranky (or maybe that’s just me); they forget to eat meals or eat way too much as a coping mechanism; and their eyes slowly become more bloodshot as the week wears on.

I think it is safe to say that by the time finals are over, most BYU students will have turned into quacks themselves.

I guess I should be happy campus doesn’t reflect the animal we sing about in our fight song. After all, I’d hate to run into a cougar on my way to class…

the times

Wow, so much time goes between my blog posts lately. I remember the days when I would post 3 and 4 days a week…those were the days. Those were also the days when all my free time wasn’t occupied with Rob, haha.

I can’t believe it is already April—last I checked it was September 2008. Even though I still have one class left to take in the spring, I sort of feel like I’m graduating in a couple weeks…I mean, it is my last full semester in college…EVER. That is so bizarre. I definitely don’t feel old enough to be graduating yet.

As I’ve been walking on campus the past couple days I’ve been feeling ridiculously nostalgic. There are just so many things about this place and about college life that I am going to miss. Here’s my list so far, though I’m betting I will add about 100 more bullet points by the time I really leave.

1. Campus: BYU has the most gorgeous campus around…especially in the spring. It smells like flowers 24/7

2. Sleeping through an alarm only to dash up a much too steep, much too long, hill.

3. The library. I never thought I would say that, because in all honesty I am quite sick of that place, but it doesn’t mean I won’t miss it. I love how loud the silence is there…like you can hear the wheels turning in students brains as they pick apart text books and hash out procrastinated papers.

4. J Dawgs. Don’t worry though, that place will be in my heaven—I will eat their again at some point!

5. Scooter rides. Nothing beats wind blowing in my hair and the line of cars following behind my 10mph speed in a 30mph zone.

6. Exams. Just kidding. I am completely content to never set foot in the testing center again once I’ve graduated.

7. Apartment life. While it can be rough, I will miss the late night chats, baking fests, laughter, “Chopped” marathons, grocery trips, dance parties, cleaning check cleaning, facebook stalking, movie watching, and peanut butter gorging that comes along with an apartment full of girls.

8. The BYU candy counter. Enough said.

9. Familiar faces. I can’t believe how many people I recognize on campus. Maybe it’s a sign that I’ve been here for too long, but I think it’s pretty cool how many people you come into contact with when you are in college.

10. Family. Having a brother, sister and cousins at BYU at the same time as me has been THE BEST.

11. Football games. Nothing beats a BYU football game…I love them to death.

12. Being exhausted 24/7. NOT. My sleeping habits and my tiredness level better improve by the time I’m a graduate!

13. Sunday dinners at the Craig household.

14. Studying on a bench in the sun during an hour break of class.

15. Being surrounded by 20-something-year-olds.

16. My Professors…there have been a few that have seriously changed my life.

17. Wearing a backpack full of practically everything I need to survive for say, a week or so.

18. Free T-shirts and free food.

19. The cycle of feeling like a little girl one minute, and an adult the next. Repeat.

20. Coming home for holidays and spur of the moment weekends.

21. Ward prayer in which I slip in for a cookie and slip out before anyone notices I was there.

22. Being a student.

Wow. Haven’t posted an entry that long in a while. I just can’t believe the end is in sight. And while I’m ready to close a chapter of my life and open a new one…it’s definitely going to be sad saying goodbye. In Charles Dickens words, “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. And I’ve loved ALL of them.