My first in-class exam was in Intermediate Macroeconomics, and I was slightly terrified.

After my three days of non-stop studying (minus the bathroom breaks and nap breaks and food breaks… and Facebook breaks and TV breaks including, but not limited to, Dexter, Community and How I Met Your Mother), I was as ready as I would ever be to take this exam.  I decided I would get there relatively early, and this meant that I would get 15 minutes of reading time before the exam began, almost like a bonus for being early. I was ready to go. I had my pre-exam cup of coffee. I had pencils, pens and a calculator. I was wearing pants, unlike most typical pre-exam nightmares.  The only thing I hadn’t done was the pre-exam workout my housemate had suggested, but I figured I could do without the morning jog.

I went to the general exam hall 15 minutes early, and I learned three very important lessons. Lesson number one: not all exams are held on campus, apparently. Lesson number two: my exam that day was not held on campus. Lesson number three: I would get that pre-exam workout my housemate suggested. After asking around and discovering that my exam was a solid five blocks away from campus, I ran for my life.

When I finally got there, not only did I fail to arrive 15 minutes early, I was 15 minutes late. I jumped into my chair as the gears in my brain jumped into double overtime. I was wide awake at that point, and scribbling answers as fast as I could. I glared at test proctors as they distracted me from my exam by reminding me to fill out insignificant information like my name and student ID number. Sweat was racing down my face as if my eyes were the finish line, forcing me to waste time to clear my vision.

However, at last, I finished without a second to spare and not a second to double-check. I walked out of that exam hall to a shining sun and warm happy smiles all around. The moral of the story is…well… I don’t think it has anything to do with morning jogging, really. Maybe the moral is… “directions a day keep the lost and tardy away!” Okay, you know what? We’ll just go with the moral: “In life, the unexpected occurs.” So, in preparation, be prepared to be unprepared, because preparing can only help you to prepare for that which can be prepared for.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 7th, 2011 at 2:55 pm and is filed under Fall 2011, Mike in Australia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.