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Printer-Friendly ModeHelpful hints to survive finals
April 25, 2011 —
Like most other students at this time, I am overwhelmed with the amount of things I have to do. I am so overwhelmed I don’t even know where to begin. Sometimes I think about what I have to do and then convert that into the amount of coffee I need to drink. Unfortunately, coffee is a stool softener, makes me jittery and upsets my tummy. So all coffee does for me lately is attribute to this feeling of being overwhelmed.
I want this column to be the antidote for the poison that is finals. I think the best way to do that is explain how glorious my summer will be and add random facts throughout that could be answers on a final exam. Don’t worry; I am going to be diverse as to cover all fields of study.
I am excited to go home this summer. The first thing I am going to do is sit on my porch swing and harass passersby, weather permitting. I will also read a book about Ivan Pavlov, who discovered classical conditioning. The author will explain that classical conditioning is different from operant conditioning because classi- cal conditioning usu- ally involves involuntary responses to stimuli and operant conditioning involves voluntary responses. I can’t think of a better way to kick off the summer.
I am excited to be home because my family is so cool. My sister might be moving home around the same time I am. She and I will speak Spanish together. She knows a lot more Spanish than I do. She will probably teach me that the verb “ser” is used when telling time. She will also teach me that “jugar” is to play a game, but “tocar” is to play an instrument.
I imagine all that new Spanish will come in handy this summer. If I run into a bilingual botanist, I can tell them, “estoy jugando en my jardín”. That would serve as a great lead in to talking about my garden. I will tell them that I have sunflowers and daisies in my garden which are both members of the family Asteraceae. I would also tell the botanist how I plan to make pickles from my cucumbers, which can be identified as pepo fruit.
I have never made pickles before, but I think that might be a new summer adventure. I am guessing that there is a lot of chemistry involved. I have a gram scale to measure the ingredients, but I will have to convert from grams to moles because everything in chemistry is on a mole basis. I can easily convert by dividing the amount of grams by the grams per mole ratio of that ingredient.
I would sell the pickles at the farmer’s market. My town just got a farmer’s market last fall and I haven’t been able to attend yet. I would like to include information pertaining to business or accounting majors here, but I know absolutely nothing about either of those two things. In fact, I know so little, I don’t even know what to Google to learn more about business or accounting (I tried “business” and “accounting” in the search bar, but neither came back with the results I was hoping for). Sorry to all of you in business and accounting classes, I have really let you down here.
I will use all the money I make from selling pickles to buy concert tickets. I am most excited to see Brett Dennen. I will try to impress him by finding all the parts of a triangle using the law of sines when initially given two angles and a side of that triangle. There is no doubt in my mind that being able to solve triangles impresses the men folk.
After Brett Dennen and I become best friends, we will call each other late at night. We will tell each other animal facts. I will probably be shy at first and only be able to tell him things like jawed vertebrates are in superclass gnathostomata. Eventually though, I will feel comfortable enough to tell him things like starfish are not hermaphroditic, but they are sexually monomorphic. Brett will tell me things like mammary glands are modified sweat glands and birds’ feathers are modified scales, making birds nothing but glorified reptiles.
Once Brett and I become even better friends we will visit the theater. I don’t know what play we will see, but if I hear someone say, “stage left,” I will know to look to my right because stage directions are based on the perspective of the performers, not the audience. I hope the actors will have worked on blocking because nothing makes me angrier than watching a play when the movements and positions of the actors and set just seem off.
After taking that last exam, give yourself a pat on the back. You have made it through another semester. Here’s to a summer filled with porch swings, family, gardens, pickles, farmer’s markets, concerts, Brett Dennen, theater and things we learned this semester.