I was pretending to be responsible (which is a hard job, believe me…). I got into bed at a semi-decent hour so I could sleep for six hours. The problem? I didn’t sleep for six hours.
I’m blaming it on the caffeine. I had a Mountain Dew with my dinner and opted to drink another at some point that evening, which must have been a little too close to bedtime. Whatever the reason, I woke up multiple times before finally getting out of bed when the alarm went off. (At least I remembered I was still in Minnesota this time around…) I went down to The Liffey for breakfast again, had some orange juice and maybe half a glass of water with my food, then headed back over to RiverCentre for a day of 200 multiple choice questions.
Things started a little slow, but I got in the zone and I was in no hurry working against the clock—I ended up getting out of the room about twenty minutes before the session ended. I went to get my lunch of out of the bag check, then went across the street to enjoy the weather while I finished up the other half of my Subway sub (which wasn’t wet and soggy after almost two days in the fridge! Yay!).
That’s when I hit the wall. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but when I get really warm and really dehydrated, I get really tired. Given that most of the liquid I’d consumed up to that point was one quart of water I brought from home, two glasses of juice, a couple cans of pop and little sips of water here and there… I can’t imagine why I’d feel dried up. Why not more water while I was there? It’s because we’ve got a well at home and the city water tastes extremely nasty in comparison.
I was tempted to take a nap outside, but I didn’t think anyone would wake me up and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t do it on my own. I eventually got back inside, sat down to wait for the doors to open up again and immediately started doing ye olde tired head bob. When I finally plopped down in my chair, we had fifteen minutes left before the clock started again and that was all I needed to conk out.
The same went for taking the exam—I was falling asleep for part of the time. If we’d been using pens instead of pencils, I wouldn’t have been able to erase all the little lines drawn in random areas on the page from those moments when I was nodding off… Still, I finished the final 100 questions of the day with about fifteen minutes to go, left the building and didn’t feel nearly as thrilled as I did the last time I escaped from the clutches of the legal nightmare known as the bar exam. I guess I was a little grumpy after waking up in the middle of the afternoon like that…
