01 May 2010 by
angelicdevil 
You are stressed. Premature wrinkles are lining your face. Gray hair threatens to spring from your hair follicles. You crave more and more caffeine each day. You don’t remember how it’s like to have a social life, love life, work life, family life. You are constantly searching for that extra boost you desperately need. You need to be ‘in the zone’. Most of all, you wish for minimal, if not zero, annoyances or people crossing your path.
In other words, you are an intellectual ball on fire set loose on campus grounds as you blaze your way from your room (which happens to look like an academic maelstrom just devastated it with all the papers, unread readings and textbooks strewn all over every corner and surface) all the way in your scruffiest sneakers and favorite jeans to your examination hall.
Deep breaths now. Alright, I’m ready to begin, never mind the fact that I’ll never be ready. And then all these irritating little things start nagging at you as you frantically scribble out an answer so you won’t have to hand in a blank exam answer booklet. Ugh, can’t I do my exam in peace?
Here is the Top Final Exams Piss-Me-Offs:
1. Forgetting to Bring Your ID
And now the lecturer is never going to forget your face, because you just spent the first 10 minutes explaining to him that you are indeed a student in the university and honestly you are trying so hard to convince him.
2. Screwy, Lousy Pens
Scribble scribble scraaaaawl…died. Tried another one. Ink too light. Tried another. Don’t like the feel of the write. Oh, your train of thought just went outta your mind.
3. Fidgety Students
Can they stop shaking their foot, legs, pens already? These people can save their talent for shaking for the clubbing nights and please stop distracting the rest of the students from concentrating on recalling information and writing down a decent essay.
4. Over-excited Invigilators
Female invigilators who wear high heels and go clomping up and down the linoleum flooring. Male invigilators who are so excited that some student raised his hand (and FINALLY now he has something to do) then he BURSTS INTO RENEWED ENERGY and starts running toward said student at fireman speed. Relax people; you’re not doing the paper!
5. Clocks Out of Your Line of Vision
Okay, most people don’t really wear watches nowadays. Some wear it just for exam purposes. But fashion-forward and absent-minded you forgot to bring a time-keeping device and the wall clock just happened to be out of your line of vision. Now you need psychic abilities and pseudo toilet trips to check out the time. Great!!
6. Freezing Exam Halls
You’d think with all the save-the-earth campaigns going on, campuses will be the first to spearhead the movement and start turning down the temperature of the central cooling system. No, they are hell-bent on freezing us to death, unless we happened to transform into yetis or polar bears in the middle of our papers. NOT likely.
7. People Who Keep Requesting for Additional Booklets
I don’t know why, but these people drive me c-r-a-z-y! I mean, I still have 4 pages to go and these people are already starting on their second booklet. They make me sweat, never mind the fact that I’m actually freezing too.
8. Difficult Questions from Hell
That have you staring at the paper and wished you had just read that extra page in the readings. And then you proceed to stare miserably at the person beside you, who is happily (outrageously smiling) as she writes her already-memorized answer out onto the answer sheet. Bleargh!!
9. CELLPHONES That Start ringing In the Middle of the Paper
What has modern society reinforced in you every time you attend an important closed-door function? Switch off your mobile phones! Turn your cellphones to silent mode! Please! It’s distracting and strangely amusing to have ‘Umbrella’ blaring out of someone’s Nokia in the middle of writing about precipitation.
So how do you tackle some of these possibly avoidable pitfalls/annoyances?
1. Wear a watch.
2. Bring a hoodie.
3. Study harder! (Can’t stress this enough though I myself need this advice more than anyone else)
4. Muster all of your endurance for quirky people.
5. Check to make sure you brought your ID.
6. Bring a few pens. (And test ‘em the night before)
7. Wake up early.
8. STAY CALM! At all costs!
Good luck all my fellow university mates in the final exams!
