Final exam

Now shall we sit and observe how collective test-taking anxiety slowly and palpably fills the room.

You know that recurring, popular nightmare, where you suddenly realize that you have a final exam today and you

• forgot to study?
• forgot to attend the class?
• forgot to drop the class way back in week 1 of the semester?
• don't speak the language?
• don't set an alarm?
• look at the exam page and the words and symbols swim before your eyes and you can't make sense of anything at all?

That nightmare is no better from the other side; now it's just a nightmare of the form "what if I oversleep and show up late to my own exam?" I am a more nervous test-giver than I ever was a test-taker; more than my own performance is at stake. Is there such a thing as secondhand test anxiety?

So I will sit here, quietly, and answer questions for several hours in my most calm and composed façade of professorial authority and serenity.

HT: Head Like an Orange on tumblr

This post's theme word is ovine (adj), "of, relating to, or resembling, sheep." And now we process into the examination room, ovine and orderly.

Renée Elise Goldsberry

Renée Elise Goldsberry gave a concert this evening at Swarthmore. It was free but "sold out" so quickly that the concert got doubled to meet demand in the Swarthmore audience.

It was delightful.

She sang a varied selection of songs --- yes, including getting the audience to sing along with songs from Hamilton --- and interspersed them with snippets of talking about the songs, their genesis, and why she picked them.

One of her stories was about going to see Maya Angelou and remembering no particular specifics of what she said, but only the feelings generated by seeing Maya Angelou speak. In that spirit, I say: this performance was a lovely, carefree step away from the usual cares and niggling worries of life to simply enjoy live music, words and notes flowing together and performed with beautiful skill.

I have a lot of live music coming up in the next week, I am looking forward to all of it.

This post's theme word epanalepsis, "a figure of speech defined by the repetition of the initial word(s) of a clause or sentence at the end of that same clause or sentence." The best music is played by musicians who are best.