thoughts on the testing center

so, the testing center has always been one of the "darker" buildings on campus, although lame jokes are made about the most prayers being offered in it. i hate the testing center less for the tests i have had to take in there and more for the fact that i have to be in a building with 700 people, all stressed out of their minds.

picture a big room with high windows with bars on them. the room is grey and silent, although there are several hundred people inside. i am describing neither a prison nor a funeral, but the byu testing center.

what i hate the most about the testing center is all of those people breathing heavily. the minute i walk into the room after being handed my test i have the feeling of being smothered. no windows. little light. no happiness. only heavy breathing, a whole room full of the echos of hundreds of people breathing. heavily. and sweating, even in the winter. and sometimes i sit in front of people who are "desk kickers." i don't need to mention that i want to kick them when, right in the middle of answering the question "what is the significance of the mereneptah stela" i begin, "it is the first" kick. "and only mention" kick. i begin writing faster, to somehow extend the time between the sentences i write and the kicks coming from the thoughtless person behind me, who is probably taking some organic chemistry exam and can't even tell you what the mereneptah stela is, let alone its significance!

so yes. i have discovered the music room and i use it as frequently as possible, and i always sit by a window. a window that is eye level. and i watch the people enter and exit the testing center instead of taking my test. and sometimes i bring my dinner, and i eat it while i am taking a test. and the room doesn't echo, and there are only about 40 people in there instead of 700.

however, if i could have my way, i would take a test in my own room, next to a window, and there would be no one breathing heavily, and no one to kick my chair, and i could get up and stretch.

or, we could just take tests in class, and the teachers could only make them as long as the class period. but of course this is a much too logical solution to the problem of the byu testing center.