March 14
I’d had to set an alarm to make sure I woke up on time. I had trouble getting to sleep because my body told me it wasn't bedtime yet, and then I kept waking up because I was nervous that I was going to miss my exam.
It was not a good start to the day.
I cut my flying short—I didn't trust myself to judge the sun's position—and stretched my shower long in the hopes that that would help shake the rest of the cobwebs in my brain loose. But it didn't help at all.
Whoever decided to schedule exams right after changing the time was cruel.
Breakfast was eaten more out of a sense of obligation than any actual desire . . . I knew that if I went into my exam hungry, I'd do badly. And I was afraid that I was going to forget everything that I'd studied by the time the exam started.
By the time class started I was a nervous wreck, and I wanted to just fly away and hide on a cloud. I was convinced that I'd fail. I could think of a hundred ways that I could screw it up. At least sleeping through class wasn't a possibility any more.
The professor welcomed us to the exam, and walked around passing out tests. I leaned down and wrote my name on mine, then paused to build up my courage.
It was completely unnerving as we started taking the test there was no noise except for the scratching of pens and pencils on paper, and the occasional screeching of a chair being moved or somebody coughing quietly.
But when I finally started to focus in on the exam, it wasn't actually all that hard. Going over the vocabulary again and again had made it stick in my memory—some words more than others. Noctilucent clouds now had a special association for me.
I finished well before the three hours we'd been allotted, read through all the questions and answers again to make sure I hadn't made any dumb mistakes, and then turned it in. We were free to go once we were done, so I quietly thanked the professor for his class, and then walked out of the classroom.
I took a brief victory flight over campus—not high enough that I needed my flight gear—and then landed right back where I'd began, flicking my tail occasionally as I looked at Mandelle Hall. Finally, I made my decision and went inside.
The registrar's office was one floor up, and I boldly went up to the counter. Once she finally saw me, a woman I didn't know came up and asked if she could help me, and I told her that I wanted to change what classes I was taking next semester if that wasn’t too much trouble.
It turned out it wasn't that difficult to do. But she said that I wouldn't officially be changed until Conrad agreed to take me in his class; he already had the maximum number of students. I thought he would—I hoped he would. Another poetry class would be more useful to me than computer science.
Lunch was pretty quiet. Some people were still recovering from their morning exam, and others had just gotten up for the day. Nobody wanted to say too much. Sean was looking over his notes, and Joe had a vaguely haunted look in his eyes. I guess his exam hadn't gone very well.
I stayed at the dining hall longer than I normally would have, because I didn't have to hurry to get to Equestrian class. The teacher had sent me a computer mail saying that she was going to do the written exam first and then the oral exam, so I didn't need to show up until three pm.
I'd run out of things to do by two: all my friends were gone from the dining hall, and while I probably could have eaten another piece of pie, I knew that I shouldn't. Even if I deserved it for winning my first final exam. So I sat out on the quad and made myself a little snow nest and then sat in it and relaxed a bit.
That was kind of a mistake; as much shaking as I did didn't dislodge all of the snow, and I still had some clinging to my ruff and melting on the floor when we started the oral exam.
I don't know how teachers get so good at not reacting when students get things wrong. I know there were a couple of times when somebody mispronounced a word so badly I pinned my ears back, and they saw it, too. Then they got flustered and had a hard time getting back on track.
It was really hard to be fair when my friends were taking their turns. Luckily for me, Meghan was really good; she'd obviously been practicing a lot. Becky was pretty good, too, and Lisa was the worst. But she was still better than a lot of students. I bet they would have all been better if they’d been practicing with me—I could have been speaking Equestrian when I was over at their room watching Harry Potter or just hanging out.
When the last person had finished, the professor and I discussed their results. I'd picked up on some stuff they'd gotten wrong that she hadn't noticed, and it turned out that she'd accidentally taught them the wrong past tense of gallop, and hadn't been as clear as she ought to have been on what was considered a formal name for a pony.
I understood that, though. Humans usually use their second names when they want to be formal and their first names when they want to be friendly, but for ponies it doesn't always work like that. There are a lot of regional influences, and you've got to pay attention to get it right.
So I was glad that we'd taken the time to talk it over, because some of the mistakes I'd caught weren't really the students' fault, and shouldn't be counted against them.
By the time I got back to my dorm room, I was completely worn out, so I stretched out on bed with the intention of taking a short nap. When I woke back up, though, I'd completely missed dinner.
Peggy helped me order a pizza, and she traded me some beer for a few slices, and we sat on my bed together and ate pizza and drank beer to unwind from the day. Tomorrow was going to be a better day, because I was going to finish my essay in the morning and then take the poetry test in the afternoon.