"So," I said to Robbie when I saw him in the lab this evening. "How was the exam for you? Did you fail, too??"

"Uh, YEAH!" he said. And then we bitched about class, exams, aggravating show-off classmates, and thankfully, he also made me laugh. We talked about how silly it really is to stress over grades. He said, "I mean, it's not like employers will be like, 'Fuck you, you only got a 3.1 GPA from UCLA? YOU SUCK!'"

I joked back, "You got a B.A. in Psychology from one of the top rated universities for the field in the country, and you weren't in the honors program?? Forget it, no way we're hiring you!"

To be fair, I wasn't stressing over grades, per se. I was stressing over not graduating this June! If I fail this class, I'll still get to walk, but I'll have to come back in the Fall. Which... I REALLY don't want to do! GAH!

Anyway...

The aggravating classmates that I was a little bent out of shape about were:

~ The guy who, shortly after the test began, must have stretched, because the T.A. asked him, "Do you have a question?" to which he responded with a condescending chuckle, "Um, no. Not at ALL." He had been bragging before the test about how easy everything is, and yeah. I hate that guy.

~ After the exam, people were in the hallway, stressing. Linda asked me how I did, and I said, "I seriously just fucking failed that exam," to which she replied, "Me too. Seriously, I did SO bad." Of course, she said that about her Chemistry final and got an A on that. And after she declared how she failed this test, she went on to explain processes to the rest of us, even explaining the answers to all of the essay questions for crying out loud! It sounds to me like she aced the damn thing. I am more jealous of her than aggravated at her, though.

~ Another guy was complaining, and I said, "So how do you feel you did?"

"Probably a low B."

"Oh, wow, that's good," I said.

And he replied, "No, it's really not," in this horribly morose tone of voice. To which I wanted to respond, "Well fuck you, then!" (I got a B on my first exam in this class, and I was ELATED!)

Robbie and I poked fun at them and people like them and agreed that we may not be the super smartest 4.0 overachievers at school who fret over A minuses ("oh n0es, there's a minus on my letter grade, whatever will I do?!"), but we are grateful to actually have lives, significant others, hobbies and even social skills, which many uber-nerds do not have.

I'm still pissed that I didn't study well enough for that fucking monster of an exam. Damn. Well, now I know! Now I know that the first exam was not AT ALL indicative of how the others will go! I expect the final to be another asskicker, so I will gear up starting... Monday. I was going to say now, but hell, my stomach is still in knots and I just can't take any more school crap right now. I need a vacation! Luckily, I'm taking one. I'll be leaving tomorrow, returning Sunday, seeing my awesome friends, and learning more about my trip to Australia. It will be quite rejuvenating, I am sure!

I am grateful for vacations and for classmates who will vent and bitch and laugh with you. Robbie really cheered me up a lot, dude. Which is a good thing, because a few minutes before I walked in there, I had been crying and mustering everything I could to get myself to stop (which I succeeded at doing). I was crying over this class last night, too! This is the most tears I've shed over school in a long-ass time, and that is not cool. I will be taking tons of steps to do better in a variety of ways for finals week (only 3 and a half weeks away!).

Robbie also told me that once something is over, you can't fret about it any more, because there is really nothing you can do about it, so why agonize? I am trying to take that advice.

As I was walking to my car, I looked around at the way the lighting caused the beautiful buildings on campus to just glow in the darkness, and I thought, "I love this place. I love campus and I hate classes. Well sometimes I love classes. I hate exams. I hate stress. Fucking school. Man." I think that is the actual definition of a love-hate relationship right there.

It'll be good to get away for a few days.