Expecting the expected. For the first time in the history of my college life, I was late for class. I woke up late already – I think I got out of bed at around 9:30, to think that I should be preparing for my 12:00 class – so everything was late, too. I finished my lunch at around 11:10 (!!!). By 11:30, we left for school. As [un]usual, traffic was building up at the thoroughfares of Katipunan Avenue. It was already 12:00, but I still wasn’t inside the classroom in time for Fil. Upon stepping on the Ateneo grounds, I headed for CTC 103 for my class. [As always, I enjoyed today's lecture. I don't know how exactly Sir Tenorio makes understanding those nose-bleeding essays easier and more enjoyable.]
That heart-pounding long exam. We had an early dismissal for Fil since we finished the lesson early. We went to SEC A directly to prepare ourselves for the first Math 19 long exam. I browsed my Math notebook (which, by the way, is already one-third filled-up) for some last-minute formula memorization, even though Kyra, my blockmate, was telling us, “Tama na ‘yan! (That’s enough – stop studying!)” Our Math exam only had 6 items – all for a hundred points! It was a fairly easy test, just like Sir Mina’s previous tests (in Sample Central 2), but I had to hurry up in answering since we were only given an hour and a half to finish the exam. It wasn’t exactly ONLY 6 items, since every item had follow-up questions. The limit questions were easy, and so are the derivatives. The profit, revenue, cost questions followed a one-wrong-all-wrong fashion. If you get one function wrong, you won’t get the next questions right. The derivative definition baffled me a bit – it was a good thing that I realized that I missed a step, that’s why I couldn’t cross out the h’s in the equation. The last item was a bit tricky. When I was just finishing the 5th item, our professor suddenly announced that we had only 5 minutes left. I panicked, since I had yet to do the last item. I looked at the question (at first, I thought it was the typical hard-last-question-for-10-shining-points) and thought to myself, “Bahala na! (what’s the better translation: ‘Let it be’ or ‘Whatever?’)” I scribbled to my [aching] heart’s content while constantly repeating to myself “lowdihay minus haydilow uber lowsquared.” I finished about a minute before time ran out – the minute was just enough for me to be able to take a deep, deep breath. I turned in my papers and compared answers with my blockmates. Tama yung sagot ko sa last item! Haha! I love it! XD I wasn’t able to recover immediately from that Aftermath Effect. It was that heavy, you get that horrible traumatic feeling after some kind of irreversible accident. Whew!
Coup-coup-roo-cook. Sometimes, you just have to surrender in order to win. (a paraphrase of Bibeth Orteza’s quote) BTW, a curfew is being imposed – no one’s out at 12 MN – 5 AM tomorrow. (Is this a preparation for Martial Law? I hope not.)
And for a sweet (though shocking) ending… here’s The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe.
