9. Did what you had to do

Law school exam, first semester.

In law school, your entire grade for most classes is only the final exam. I have a particularly bad habit of not studying all semester and pulling all nighters the day or two before exams to cram a semester’s worth of material into my head.

On the morning of one of my finals my first year, I woke to a text from a classmate asking where I was as the exam started in 15 minutes. Panicked, I raced to the administrative office (because you get cards with a series of numbers to use as your name on exams, to ensure all exams are anonymously graded) and, naturally, I hadn’t gotten my card yet.

However, the woman at the office wouldn’t give me my anonymous card, stating that I had an unpaid parking ticket that first needed to be paid. I hadn’t brought my wallet with me, but had brought my license which I offered to leave as collateral, promising to pay it once the exam was over. She rolled her eyes and told me tough luck, should have planned better. Already in a panic, stressed about exams, not ready to accept I had caused this entire problem myself, and disbelieving that I was going to miss an exam due to this woman’s lack of basic empathy, I lost it.

She gave me my card. I was banned from entering the office unless two people were on staff, though.

10. …wait

A flight from Amsterdam to home.

That was a very costly nap. Almost cost me more then the night before my flight.

11. A Saturday final?!

My sociolinguistics final.

I had an alarm go off at 8 AM Monday through Friday. But this final was at 9 AM on a Saturday, because my school was run by jerks. So no alarm. I started day drinking pretty much immediately.

I had done very well in the class so I ended up with a C despite having a 0 on the final, but I still feel really embarrassed about the whole thing. Meh, my GPA was bad anyway.

12. Saviour

Fell asleep on a train in South Korea (traveling from Seoul to Kumi City). Normally a 3 hour trip. Thankfully, I woke up as the train was leaving the station as I would never known that I passed my stop. I thought “I’ll just get off at the next stop and jump on the train traveling in the opposite direction”. 45 minutes later I get off at a station that looks like a warehouse and is stationed in a valley (think “middle of nowhere” and you’re close). Tracks are exiting the station in 12 directions, there’s only one employee there and he can’t speak english. The train schedule is printed on the wall and it is all in Korean.

I went to the one guy and handed him my ticket, and started pointing at the tracks asking “Kumi?” and he looked at me not understanding the question (to be fair, the name is Anglicized, and may sound more like Gumi or Goomi). Finally, he saw the destination on the ticket pointed at it, and he summoned his best English “This….this…KUMI!”. I said “yes!” and started motioning like I was trying to figure out which track to stand at. He then asked “Why…why……HERE?”, I immediately mimed a person sleeping, and he burst out laughing. Then he walked over to the schedule on the wall, studied it for 2-3 minutes then walked me over several sets of tracks and waited with me. When a train arrived, he signalled to the conductor to wait for a while (S. Korean trains run a tight schedule), he walked through the cars until he found a family that had an empty seat AND wanted to practice their English. I communicated my thanks to the guy through the family, and talked with them all the way back so that I would stay awake.

13. Good job?

My final. It started at noon. I woke up and checked the time, and it was 2. I was super pissed at myself so I got out of bed and punched something. That something was my dorm room window. It shattered and made a pretty nasty laceration in my arm. I went to the ER, stitched it up and asked the Dr. for a note stating I was there that day. Got the note, showed it to my prof + the laceration, he gave me a B. Not bad.

14. Just a lazy dude who oversleeps

I overslept and missed one of my closest friend’s graduation. He was ok with that. Until I overslept and missed his 60th birthday party. Now he thinks I don’t care about him, although I’m just a lazy dude.

15. Lucky dog

I slept through the presentation for my dissertation at uni.

It was worth 30% of the grade for that module with a pass mark of 60%, so I felt pretty nervous.

Turns out my report was pretty well received, so I got me 66% from that alone.

16. Senioritis

Senior year high school pulled an all nighter editing together my final project for film class (friend and I wrote and shot a movie), finished just in time to get to school that morning to turn in the project and take the final exam.

Went home and fell asleep….right through the spring musical. As a part of chorus that was a big part of our grade I believe, and all my family was there. I was blissfully asleep until my mom got home wondering where I had been.