Finals Week: The Student Body

Day 79: I arrived on campus at my normal time and immediately noticed a difference. As I usually do on exam days, I drove past the fire station (for luck). Most mornings, there are  handful of joggers and strollers, women with their hair tied back, chubby men with noisy strides, and the like. This morning, there was no one. Things were so desolate, I double checked the date on my phone to be sure I hadn't shown up on a Sunday:

Mon, May 6, 2013

I parked and noticed the garage was conspicuously bare as well. I easily got a spot near the door and, again, checked my phone, sure that I had arrived on campus extra early:

7:58 AM

A few groups of people wandered the campus in packs, similar to the tour groups that began popping up a few months ago but comprised of much older folk. An older woman in one of the groups smiled at me, her lips parting on a yellowing set of uneven teeth.I got the feeling that she knew something that I didn't. I did my best to smile back.

I ate breakfast in a strangely deserted Student Union, now slightly nervous, now checking the date and time on my phone every few minutes, now double and triple checking the exam schedule. To calm myself a little, I   browsed my news/blog feeds. When I looked up a few moments later, the place was packed - PACKED! - with students, silent, eager, desperately sweating students.

Two young men stared at their textbooks then at one another. "Lambda equals h over p," one of the young men said, unsure, squinting. The young man opposite him squinted back, as if trying to see something that wasn't there. They stayed like this for a few moments before returning their gaze each to his own textbook.

A young woman to my left fidgeted with her cell phone, mumbling to herself, writing things down and crossing them out seemingly at random. Her phone rang for only and instant before she answer breathlessly, "Jenna thank GOD! Did you take notes? Can you bring them? I'm at The U." There were a couple of beats of silence before she followed up with, "I know he's gonna screw us with this exam. [pause] Right? He's such an asshole." After a few more choice words, she hung up the phone and returned to her ritual of scrawling and scribbling.

A young man bumped into me and began apologizing profusely. "It's ok," I said, distant, confused. His eyes were red and cloudy with great dark circles around them. He kept talking, a man in a dream, walking away, speaking to no one.

I'm usually alone in the library with my secret crush for an hour or so before class. Today, every single PC was taken. Moreover, students had situated themselves in piles all over the floor, against the walls, draped over couches, stuffed behind doors and in chairs. They were dressed in PJs, old t-shirts, their hair in disarray, their eyes moody and distant. I remembered a sign on the way in that read, Library Open 24/7 during Exam Week. Good Luck! "My God," I thought to myself. "Have they been here all night?"

All around was the smell of panic and nervous sweat, a dank metallic aura of fear and regret. They mumbled to themselves and one another, rocking slightly, hunched over text books, babbling, chanting, praying.

One girl spontaneously burst into tears. A few students situated near her looked about helplessly, unsure, their fingers holding their place in their textbooks. But her tears lasted only a moment. She cleared her throat and swiped at her face, running her fingers through her hair. The other students returned to their textbooks, pretending not to have witnessed her indignity.

I left the library.

I arrived to my first exam 20 minutes early. Here, too, the floor was lousy with lounging students, students propped against walls and dangling on the ends of stools and chairs. Some were fast asleep. Some looked insane. One was reading the textbook and taking notes. I steered clear of him.

Five minutes before the exam, we were seated in the lecture hall, waiting, praying, counting down. A student behind me used the free time to pepper the TA with questions. After a minute or two, I turned to him and said, "Kid, if you don't know it by now, you don't know it. Relax and earn your grade."

The TA smiled meekly, shrugging a bit. "He's right," she said. The student began chewing his lower lip, marking the time with wet, weasel eyes.

When I finished the exam, I headed to the library again. Even before I entered, I saw an explosion of students strewn about, desperate, tortured, fretful. A beautiful young woman walked by outside the library, talking on her cell phone, uncharacteristically cheerful and carefree."I could care less if I get a D or whatever," she giggled. "It's Daddy's money!"

She smelled like a Chanel no. 5 commercial.