Today #7

Today #7
Spanish Competency

Today, being the day on which I wrote what is to follow in a notebook, I took the Spanish competency test. Today is also the day I began my new notebook. It is a small, marble memo notebook. Dimensions: 4.5 x 3.5 in (or 114 x 82 mm if you worship Satan). This is my first and currently only entry, written backwards with 2H, 0.5 graphite, completely unchanged except for spelling, at which I am very poor:

12 Oct 09
5:40 pm: I enter Classics room 111 for my Spanish proficiency test. The test begins at 5:45, but I got here a few minutes early. There are three others in the room and one lone backpack, and we all avoid looking at each other. Or, at least, I am doing so. I like the thought that, since we are all here for this Spanish test, we could all carry out a "competent-level" conversation in Spanish, but, of cousre, doing so would be the worst thing in any of our lives, so we will continue to shift our eyes around the room.

The woman, while checking to see if we were all signed up, tells me I am not on the list. I trust her, yet I explain to her why I should be on the list, namely because my advisor said he signed me up (this was done over the phone) and because I got all the reminder e-mails.
*Sign up for oral exam in Gates-Blake between rooms 211 and 212 before Oct 21st*
The boy sitting adjacent to me is bouncing his leg and is making the whole table move. He has stopped.

He drew a star on the piece of paper in front of him. He wears glasses and a wispy beard, as well as a white jacket made out of the material that fencing jackets are made of.
7:54 pm: The boy next to me was sick and kept coughing all over the place. He asked to borrow my eraser and then proceeded to hoard it for the rest of the test. As usual, I was the second-last to finish and I ran out of time. I can hear and speak Spanish fine, writing it takes some time, and reading it is disastrous. In the end, the woman said

she found my name on the list. I wasn't expecting the test to take this long, so I missed dinner. I was supposed to eat with Kat, Mike, Hervé, and Sarah. There is music being performed/practiced nearby and it sounds very nice. I will not investigate. The readings for the test were about how laughing is good for you, Lent, the anniversary of some TV character, and a Cuban music group that plays in Chicago sometimes. To the question "Why don't we laugh as much anymore?" I wrote, "George Bush," because I

sometimes think I'm funny.