Sean Connery Flicked Me the Bird

I'm a little concerned. We're only three weeks into the spring semester and I'm already tottering on the edge of academic despair. It takes all that's within me to keep from hurling myself over the cliff boredom into the apathetic abyss below (ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit).

The truth is, I've found it harder and harder to concentrate as the semester goes on. The first few days were great. The professors were new, the students were new... then I started to notice things... you know, little things. Let me give you an example.

I have physics at 2:00 every tues and thurs with professor Bone in one of those huge lecture halls. About halfway through his second lecture I couldn't help but notice the way he wrote on the whiteboard. He writes with his right hand and holds the marker cap between his left thumb and index finger. Normally this type of behavior wouldn't strike me as odd, but professor Bone likes to point at the class while lecturing. Since his index finger is occupied, he just waves his middle finger back and forth across the room. On top of that, he looks and talks exactly like Sean Connery. Understandably, it's quite difficult to listen to a lecture on the torque a uniform electric field exerts on a dipole while Sean Connery is flicking me the bird.

He's not the only professor I notice either. My ethics professor can't extend his right pinkie finger and sticks his tongue out every time he asks the class a question. My chem teacher looks at the floor every 45 seconds and has the oddest shaped beer-belly I have ever seen. If I didn't know better I'd think he stuffs a koala bear under his shirt before he comes to class.

The thing that bothers me the most, though, is that no one else my classes seem to notice. I don't understand it. There has to be someone else out there who sees these things... right?.

Finals Week

As I gulp down my third cup of coffee for the night I pray that the caffeine will sustain me just a few more hours. Tonight marks the halfway point of finals week and my third all-nighter in four days. A caffeine-induced panic is all that keeps me from passing out on the library floor. In the midst of growing anxiety over a calc 3 final I have on friday, I stop to think... what will it be like on that day? Will I be prepared when I have to stand before a holy, righteous God for my final examination? How gut wrenching will the moment be when I have to answer for every secret action, every hidden thought? God doesn't grade on a curve. He says that "whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point becomes accountable for all of it" (James 2:10). Have I broken any of the ten commandments? Better yet, are there any that I haven't? What defense do I have against to judgment of "Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28)? Suddenly the stress of exam week seems trivial when I realize that my next breath could be my last and the wrath of God may only be a heartbeat away. There are no night-before cram sessions with death. No last-minute good deeds can make up for even one of my, of your, endless offences. How will you answer on that day? Have you kept all of the commandments perfectly? If not, what security do you have that your next breath will not be in hell?

Time for another cup of coffee.