Midterms Suck

So midterms just finished up this week (finally). I've been meaning to start this blog up sooner, but with all of my midterms happening at once, it just wasn't going to happen. So...uh...ta da!

Midterms...they're glorious. It's a nice reminder to myself of how I procrastinate and wait until the last possible minute to study or get things done. This isn't entirely a bad thing. I tend to work better under pressure and I have a higher retention rate when I study a couple of hours just before an exam. I'm in my last stretch of my college career and planning to graduate December 2011, and in hindsight of this current Spring semester, I shouldn't have taken all of my general education classes and writing intensives at the same time. My current classes you ask?

Let's see, I start off in the morning with Renaissance History. It's not so bad since the professor is pretty rockin', and I remember the first session of class we got to watch the "Bring Out Yer Dead!" segment of Monty Python's The Holy Grail. Shortly after that class I have Spanish 2010, and after not having a Spanish class since I graduated from high school in 2007...it sucks for the most part. After Spanish I make my way into Intro To The Study of Religion. Now, living in the bible belt makes this class oh-so-much harder. The professor has a tendency of relating everything to Christianity...when I'm not Christian. So when he asks a question in regards to Christianity (when we haven't even discussed it as far as the curriculum goes), I just stare at him with a face of "WTF M8?" I'm not very pretty with that face, and quite frankly, my professor isn't pretty at all. After this bundle-of-fun class I run up a few flights of stairs to get to Political Life, which is actually my favorite class. We learn about politics...which I never thought I'd enjoy since politics is a complete borefest to me. What makes this class interesting is 1) The reading material is historical fiction of the Roman Empire, and 2) the professor is a sarcastic asshole who curses like a sailor. His lectures are actually worth going to and a nice pick-me-up for my last class after sitting through three hours of other classes.

With that being said, I shall continue with the story for today.

Returning from Spring Break, I had two midterm exams on Tuesday...or so I thought. The midterm for Political Life was a single-question 500 word essay, but it was an open note exam, so I didn't worry about studying for it over spring break. The second exam was for Religion. I admit, I haven't been following that class so closely since the professor is very boring, and the entire class is a bunch of book work. I did make an effort to study for the exam periodically during the break, looking over some notes, going over the study guide he had given us in our syllabus, and speed-reading through some of the readings.

Good thing: I made a A- on my first essay in Religion, so my grade in this class is, surprisingly, decent. I didn't want this midterm exam to dull my grade any further if I could help it. So, the night before the exam, as are my usual study tactics, when I get home from work, I went through all of the readings...but I was up until the wee hours of the morning going through everything to make sure I had a pretty good understanding of the material. As the professor told us, our exam would be a single essay question, same as the Political Life exam....here's the kicker: I have selective hearing. That's all I remember hearing the professor in Religion mentioning before spring break. Now...I would have emailed him and asked him about it over the break to be sure, but he never responds to emails (so far this semester I've emailed him three times and never got a response out of him, so it's pretty pointless to waste my time emailing him).

I skipped Renaissance history that morning. Attendance isn't mandatory due to he posts all of the lectures online, and given it's a morning class, we college students have a bitch of a time getting up that early. I continued to review my Religion text books during my Spanish class and after it just before my Religion class. I get to Religion a bit early because the anticipation of this exam is killing me. The class before hasn't let out yet, so my classmates and I are chilling in the hallway waiting for it to start. So, I ask, "So, ready for the midterm exam?" One of the girls in my class tells me:

With dark circles under my eyes, I was both relaxed and pissed off at the same time. I wasn't angry at my professor, or my classmate, no no no...I was pissed off at myself. Due to my selective hearing and short attention span, I completely missed the discussion of no midterm in the session before spring break. After coming to this conclusion, I checked my planner and came to the realization: I never noted of a midterm exam for Religion.

On the bright side, I had an amazing nap after classes for the day.