A Mid-Semester Night's Dream

Issue 12, Semester 1, 2019

VARIOUS AUTHORS

As the final days of semester draw to a close, and the shadow of exams turns from a menacing smudge in the corner of our vision to a looming monstrosity of Brobdingnagian proportions, it’s only natural that we begin indulging ourselves in the various pathologies enjoyed by overworked and overreacting students. In eager anticipation of this season’s line-up of oneiric terrors, we bring you an anthology of some of our choicest stress dreams to provide inspiration for your own nightmares!
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Image: Luci Gutierrez, The Atlantic

It begins with me realising I have woken up ten minutes into the reading time of my Obligations exam. I tumble out of bed and it cuts to the next scene — my arrival at the exam venue. For some reason, it looks nothing like a room at MLS, but instead more like the room in which I did my RSA and food handling qualifications. As I burst through the door in a fluster, everyone looks up from their screens, their stares like a thousand daggers boring through my fragile sack of flesh. It's then I realise I’m wearing a t-shirt, but am stark naked on the bottom. Fuck.

The invigilator comes over and asks me what the hell I’m doing. She looks like Roz the secretary from Monsters Inc. I tell her I’ve arrived to do my Obligations exam, and suddenly, [name redacted], the lecturer dressed in a tricolour-striped polo shirt comes up to me and says in a curt, disappointed voice, ‘you’ll be taking the late entrants’ version of the exam.’ As I sit in the corner, I realise this version of the exam is different to the one everyone else is doing on their computers. It’s a paper exam, with an abstract ink shape printed on it, and instructions to ‘write a piece on the image prompt.’ Monster Roz tells me I must use a pencil, and no other instruments. But each time I pick up the pencil, the tip snaps off, and I have to ask Roz to come ‘round and sharpen my pencil, only to have it snap off again. It’s a painful two hours. I’m still pantsless.

After the exam, platters of sushi are, inexplicably, outside the room. Exam-takers swarm the table for a snack. I’ve become rather peckish. As I reach for a sweet little maki, my fingertips snap off like the tips of my pencils.

- Ying W

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It’s the day of some exam, and I wake up to find that all my hair has fallen out. But I’m not like ‘oh Jesus, somebody take me to the hospital’, I’m like ‘great, now I have to go and buy new hair, I don’t have time for this shit today.’ Luckily I live upstairs from a hair shop, but their EFTPOS machine isn’t working, so I have to walk to the supermarket to get money out. I get to the supermarket, and I’m like ‘crap, do we have milk? What about dish soap?’ I try making a list, but I don’t have any paper on me, so I try writing it down on my t-shirt. Now everybody knows that I need milk, which is convenient because the lady at the checkout pulls some out as soon as I walk through the front door. I get home with my milk, but then realise that the house needs cleaning. OBVIOUSLY I can’t go to an exam and leave the house messy, so I start scrubbing things down. Now I’m stressing out because I’m late for my exam, but I still have so much cleaning to do. Then my sister starts making breakfast, and she’s making a mess, which is making me angry because SHE CAN SEE THAT I’M TRYING TO CLEAN, HOW HARD IS IT TO PUT YOUR FUCKING DISHES IN THE DISHWASHER? But I don’t say anything because I’m passive aggressive like that.

- Emma C
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I’m trying to get to my venue, but the entire city has been overrun by vampires. I make it to the room, and there are only like six of my friends left alive. Luckily, Sir Ben Kingsley is there as a secret agent to keep all the vampires out. But he does an absolutely terrible job of it, because vampires keep breaking in through the back doors, and as I’m trying to write I have to keep jumping out of my seat to avoid all the crossfire and rampaging undead. Meanwhile, the invigilator is walking up and down loudly reminding us that there will be no extra time given, and just as I finish writing a really great essay it gets blood all over it, and I realise that I’ve accidentally been writing in Polish, so now I can’t understand anything I’ve written. I’m not sure that I want a Communications degree this badly.

- Michael F
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I pull the stray strand of hair behind my ear. Only one of five documents left to print. I am infuriated at myself for not finalising my notes last night, but there is literally no time for self-reprehension. I collect my printed notes and rush for the stapler. Some imbecile is hogging it and stapling his practice exams. ‘Can somebody tell this Commerce kid to get out of my way?’, I think to myself. Eventually I make it out of the law building and start running for the Royal Exhibition Building. I wait outside, but the invigilator does not call out my subject. Then I realise. I’m at the wrong venue. I Usain Bolt it to the correct venue, but when I arrive, they won’t let me in. It takes a bit of muscle (literally) until I smuggle myself in and savour what is left of reading time. In the ending seconds of the exam, I manage to quickly scribble my student number on only one of the exam booklets. ‘PENS DOWN!’ Just as I hand my exam to the invigilator, I sneeze on it and my snot blobs out my student number. It takes an extra two weeks to convince my subject coordinator that I did sit the exam.

- Sonja SM
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Editor’s Note: We’re actually not sure this last one is a dream, and it would go some way to explaining Sonja’s marks in Obs.