Slap me on the back, pat me on the shoulder! I totally passed my literature oral and it was not that hard! I was freaking out all of yesterday worrying about it (and maybe studying a little bit). I was drunk on adrenaline from all the times I thought of my exam and it exploded inside of my body. I couldn’t even eat breakfast this morning. I tried, but I just ended up spitting it out of my mouth because my body would not take it. I ended up pacing back and forth in the kitchen, trying to burn off all of my nervous energy.
When I got to school, I waited outside of my literature teacher’s room while going over notes and reviewing stories. I also was waving a paper fan furiously at my face, not just to cool down, but to take away my pre-exam jitters. My heart kept thumping every time I saw somebody that might have been my literature teacher walking towards the class room. She didn’t come until maybe twenty minutes later, though, so I had some time to look over the short stories and poems we had read over the school year.
When my teacher got to the class room, I went inside and sat down. She told me that she wasn’t quite ready, so I kept reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark.” There were a few stories that I really did not want to be stuck with when I had to go and pick from a stack of envelopes. They included Young Goodman Brown, anything from Othello, and the poems I hadn’t really had time to dissect at home. Probably Young Goodman Brown, especially, because I hadn’t really understood parts of it when we did read it in class.
My teacher asked me whether I wanted something to drink and to water her plants before we got started on the exam. After all that was done, I headed, scared to death, over to the pile of envelopes on her desk. I picked out the most protuberant one of the pile and yanked it out. I stuck my hand inside and withdrew the paper.
Now, I didn’t really know what to think when my teacher told the class that everybody always got the one piece that they did not want at all. Upon opening my envelope, however, I now know that my teacher is either capable of predicting the future, or is just really good at guessing. In my hands was an excerpt from Young Goodman Brown.
“How does the author define the characters using imagery, symbolism, and other stylistic devices, yadah, yadah, yadah, etc.”
I told my teacher that this was not quite the one I was hoping to get as I sat down. Inside, I was thinking, Oh, God, what am I going todo?! I had twenty minutes to read, annotate, and write notes about the story. I was surprised at how, after reading it, easily I was able to pick ideas and and pieces of the story that would apply to my exam. I ended up with two pages of notes and the story somewhat highlighted and annotated.
I started my tape and started talking. I think I messed up a few times, at least with my vocabulary. It’s horribly limited. I kept pausing for ten seconds at a time to try and think of words to use and ended up sound like, “So, he uh… he…. well, um…. he did, no, wait…. he uh…. okay, um…. yeah.” I guess I did pretty well besides stumbling on words a few times. The fifteen minutes were up before I knew it.
I looked up and my teacher had a big smile on her face. She said that she was very impressed and that I should probably speak up more in class and share my ideas. I took at “Hoorah! You-made-it-through-the-exam!” sucker from her desk and left. I had butterflies in my stomach still, but they were good butterflies.
