Saved By The...

I don't believe in superstitions or any of that other nonsense, but I do believe that every once in a while I can get lucky. Today was one of those days. No I didn't win the lottery, get my full tuition paid, or even get treat. Well I guess it can be considered a treat but it was more of a "break". Today I had a test an Architectural History and while I was prepared enough for my liking, more time to prepare wouldn't have been a bad thing. Yes I have known about this test since the first week of school but with so much other stuff going on (I am taking 4 other courses) I wasn't prioritized as #1. I had enough knowledge to pull off a B on this first test which would be acceptable in my books as the first test is always the hardest. But the story starts a little before the test time at 1:30 today and harks back to last night.

As I sit studying at my desk, learning my Greek temples from my Roman Temples and Early Christian Churches from Byzantine Churches, the fire alarm sounds in the dorm. Surprise surprise, we had yet to have a fire drill and its over a month into the year so I knew it was on the way. It just had to be a little over an hour into my study time, when Im hitting my groove the alarm sounds. Great I'm set back 20 or so minutes. No big deal. When I come back in I continue to scroll through pictures and plans of the building I'll need to be able to identify and decide at midnight that I know as much as I'm going and the rest will be covered my by usually primed BS skills. It's not that its a hard class, but the professor lectures over so much material I am not exactly sure what to take note of, only realizing as I'm studying that very little from the textbook shows up on the study guide and its mainly over lecture material. I struggle to stay awake for the 1H 20MIN class, because of his monotonous voice and poor presentation of the material.

So I feel good enough going into the test but I still have my complaints and such about what is going to appear on the test. Not surprisingly so does everybody else. So much information and the test surely can't cover it all. We have to use slides to answer the questions so the test is taken as a group with 5 or minutes allotted for each answer and then 30 minutes for the essay. I had flipped to the essay right when I got the test realizing that I could answer it in 20 or so minutes and therefore go back to the short answer questions if any stumped me. Well sure enough one stumped me, but I took enough notes that if I did know it, it would come to me. And as I am about to finish my essay in 15 or so minutes, the fire alarm goes off. Up to that point I think I did enough work to get a B, though I would have gone back and polished the short answers.

The professor tells us to pass our tests in and that he'll see us next week. So now the great debate is what the professor will do come Monday. I know that I had extra time and was going to put more into my short answers. I'm sure other people were going to do that to. My essay really was concluded but I still had time. So is he going to grade what we've done and that's are grade? I hope not I had more to say and more time. Is he going to grade what we have and give some sort of curve? That might work but I still don't think that's fair. Is he going to give another test? That would suck but it would have to cover the other 50% of the material not already asked, so in essence it would be like giving us the same test. All I know is that it was not his fault and it was not my fault for the alarm going off and therefore should not and will not allow myself to be penalized for it. Don't think I won't fight this battle to the bitter end if it comes to that.

In the end though it seems as if the class in general was saved by the fire alarm.