It was a joke... really

This might become a rambling blog entry. I just finished half of a crazy-hard final. The final was supposed to take 50 minutes. It took 1 1/2 hours. At the beginning of class an older woman who was taking the class brought in donuts to make the test a little more enjoyable. It was a worthy effort. It just didn't work. It was a music theory test. It was one of the most difficult tests I have ever taken. And that's only the first half! I'm in second-semester music theory. The tests are not supposed to be that difficult.

Sitting there in the hallway after we were kicked out of our room, you could feel the anger of all the students at our teacher. He's a grad student from some other university. I think he thinks that in order to feel like he's a good teacher, he needs to give us insanely difficult tests that are even harder than the tests that the typical music faculty give! That helps him to validate himself and feel important. One girl handed in her test and the only thing she said to him was ,"you're awful". One professor walked by and made a small joke. Everyone looked at him... more like stared at him. Not one laugh sounded, not one word was said, not even one smile was cracked. Finally the professor said, "It was a joke... really." We then could give him a small smile, grateful that he made the attempt at humor.

After I handed in my test, several of my friends and I went to lunch. We were still fuming about the test and how ridiculously hard it was. After we finished fuming, we determined one thing. We were grateful for it. We realized that next semester theory will be that much easier because this class was more difficult than it should have been. Anyway, it was an attempt at a positive attitute!