No more questions, Please, No more tests...

Okay folks, I've got a truly amazing story to share with you. Just two hours ago, I experienced something completely unexpected in my college experience. Something that you always hear rumors and urban legends about, but can never truly be sure exists. Something that is never associated with college life, but terrifies every college student to their very core. That's right. I took my very first college exam.

Economics midterm exam, to be exact. I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty nervous. I mean, I generally feel like I've been doing well in the class, and for the past few nights I have been reviewing my notes and doing practice problems, so I was definitely well prepared. But there's something about the idea of your first ever college exam that just makes your mind do what is demonstrated in the helpful diagram to the right.

 But overall, I felt okay about the exam. It was made up of 20 multiple choice questions worth one point each and 5 multi-part short answer questions worth between 15 and 20 points each. Overall I felt better about the short answers than the multiple choice questions. (SURPRISE TANGENT: I've never understood why so many people find multiple choice to be so much easier! I mean, with a short answer, since there's a lot of explanation and calculation involved, you can get partial credit for your work even if the final answer is incorrect. With multiple choice, it's a 25% chance and if you're wrong, that's it. Nothing. I don't get it...)

Anyways, so that's that. In addition to that, last Thursday I had my first late-night-cramming-to-finish-multiple-assignments-library-session. Which was just honey bunches of fun (I'm experiencing so many wonderful college things, aren't I?) Assignment #1: 5(ish) page paper defending or refuting the statement that "In strict Darwinian terms, there is a selective advantage to creating art" (for my Psychobiological Perspective on the Arts class). Assignment #2: 1,200-1,500 word paper explaining what the John Keats poem "To Autumn" is truly about (for my "Beyond Disbelief" poetry seminar class). So essentially, after spending a total of 6 (or was it 7?) hours in the library, my brain was doing essentially what is depicted in the lovely picture to the left. To the left, to the left, Everything you own in the box to the left. (Oh yeah, I sometimes spontaneously burst into song. Just so ya know...)

But now the papers are completed and have been handed in, so I don't need to worry about those anymore. In fact, I just had a meeting with my Psych professor today to discuss my paper (most intense, stressful meeting ever) and he pointed out a few things for me to work on in my writing. It wasn't that bad. The main issue was that a couple of my arguments were unclear. When he asked me to specify what I meant and I explained, he said "Now, the way you said it just now made much more sense than it did in the paper." So I guess I'll have to work on that (also, because I was proofreading at 11:00 at night, I failed to notice that in the introduction paragraph, I accidentally used the word "illicit" when I meant "elicit." #vocabularyfail...) I have yet to hear anything about my poetry paper, but I imagine I will be hearing about it soon. So, now that those papers are done and my midterm is done, the next big work thing I have to keep an eye on is a Theater paper about a character from the play "All My Sons" (which we read a few weeks ago). But that actually seems really enjoyable, so I'll probably have fun writing that one. Because I am SUCH a FRAKKING NERD.

Last but certainly not least, IT'S HELL WEEK ONCE AGAIN! (That was put in all caps to demonstrate both excitement and anxiety at the same time. Either way, it's meant to be screamed....) Yes, ladies and gents, the OMTA showcase is this weekend! And BOY has it been exciting! And by "exciting" I mean "oh-my-god-this-is-so-freaking-hectic-and-crazy-what-the-hell-are-we-doing-what-is-the-meaning-of-life-anymore-expletive-expletive-expletive." Seriously. We just found out yesterday what dates and times our performances. YESTERDAY. Yeah....And tomorrow is our first tech rehearsal. By the way, funny story: The performances are going to be in a great little coffeehouse in the town of Oberlin called the Slow Train Cafe. And since they are open for business that evening, we have to wait until they close before we can rehearse. Meaning our rehearsal is going to START at 10:00pm. It's gonna be a lonnnnnnnnng night.

But really, who am I kidding? I'm complaining about the disorganization and the late rehearsals and how exhausting it's going to be, but guess what? I'm still loving every minute of it. I always love every minute of it. That's the thing about theater people. They put up with the long hours and the backstage drama and the crazy directors/producers/designers/actors/etc. because deep down they love it too much to give it up. That's why they audition for so many things at once even though they know it'll eat up their entire schedule. That's why they push through all of the pointless busywork during the day looking forward to their 10pm rehearsal. That's why they write long blog posts about their theater experiences and title every post with a Stephen Sondheim lyric. (Betcha didn't notice that, didya? Eh? Eh? Well, let's see how long I can keep that up before I run out of ideas...) So, as I sally forth into the dark depths of tech week, I am ultimately looking forward to the final product, which will be a fantastic, amazingly fun showcase of musical theater songs. I'll let you know how it goes!

This post was brought to you by RANDOM CAPITALIZATION and the ShoelessObiesFoundation, whose members challenge you to count how many people you see around campus without shoes. You may be surprised at how many you find...