The Coldness of
Finals Week
by Alex Andy Phuong
This
story began during the cold winter
month of December in 2016. During her last
semester in college, a student named Anna was
diligently preparing for final exams. She
was an English Major, but was nothing like
Anastasia Steele from Fifty Shades of
Grey. Instead, she would never flirt
with any of the college boys because of her
dedication to academic excellence. She was
a bit melancholic about school ending soon, but
she did her best to be optimistic.
She
was preparing for a final exam for the British
literature course during winter break by studying
works by Charles Dickens. She loved A
Christmas Carol ever since she saw the
Disney adaptation with Uncle Scrooge as a duck.
She simply adored Dickens even though he was
verbose at times. (He actually had to be
wordy because that was how he made money back
then.) Anna looked forward to the New Year
because she was excited about finishing her
Bachelor of Arts in English.
Then
the final exam came. She accidentally
misread her syllabus, and thought that she had to
do her final exam on A Christmas Carol.
To her surprise, she actually had to write a
timed essay on Great Expectations!
Shocked with horror, Anna took some deep breaths,
and did her best to recall the two film versions
that she saw in high school. She saw the
classic black-and-white version that David Lean
directed in 1946. She also remembered
seeing the 1998 modernized version, which starred
Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Nevertheless, she just took some deep breaths,
and did her best to answer the prompt. The
prompt basically asked to analyze the title, and
she ended her essay by writing about how
achieving a sense of human dignity is man's
greatest expectation.
The
semester ended, and Anna did receive her degree in
February 2017 after her (somewhat) disastrous
experience during her last final exam ever.
Unfortunately, she earned a "B" in her
British literature class, but Anna did her best
to not complain. In fact, she was a lot
like Elsa's dorky sister from the animated hit Frozen.
Anna simply accepted the fact that things happen
sometimes, and she celebrated finishing college
by singing the song “Let It Go” at a
restaurant that had a “Disney Karaoke Night.”
Instead of the singing the last line of the Oscar-winning
song, she simply sang, “Finals never
bothered me anyway!”
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