The Adam Boy

CHAPTER 40 - ANGEL'S DESPERATION

We were entering exam weeks and it was already possible to find students coming to college early to be able to study. Angel was one of them. Our tests would be applied in two days and on Angel's desk they had three handouts, her notebook and more copies of another four, apart from the films and documentaries that the teachers asked for content. She just said good night to me and went back to reading one of the two books that were also with her. As I saw that I would not be able to steal her attention against her studies, I took one of her handouts and started studying too. Twenty minutes after she closes the book, I realize that she is very nervous.

"There," she said, "I'm very nervous for this first test, Adam. I've read all this booklet, I got copies of other notebooks, today I'm going to see if I can watch these two DVDs, even if I don't have to sleep to go to work. - Then she took my shirt and in an act of desperation asked: - I don't know what else to study. What do I study, Adam?

"Nothing, Angelica," I replied calmly. - If you have read all this and have not missed classes, you don't need to study any more.

I did not understand that students' despair in weeks of tests. Certainly it is good to study a little before them, but not like that. People were on the point of despairing suicide, left work early, did not sleep, read handouts and more handouts with books, until the last minute before the teacher arrived and applied the test. What I think is unnecessary: ​​if you followed all the classes and didn't miss them, if you read the book the teacher asked for, and even studied to remember everything, there is no need to stay in that neurosis that remains. Studying how they study before exams makes me even more confused, not to mention that the brain is already tired before taking the exams. Another thing that I find even more unnecessary is seeing students anguish when they don't know a question. And they insist on trying to know. Hey, if you don't know, you don't need to squeeze your brain, as it won't, by a miracle, make you know how to give that answer. It's one thing to forget what you know and try to remember, but what most students do is try to remember something they don't know. Waste of time and energy. If I don't know or don't remember a question, I skip to the next one to see if it is easier and thus guarantee a little more note, then later I go back to the one I left blank, if I remember correctly. If I'm sure I don't know, I don't mistreat my brain. If I don't know or don't remember a question, I skip to the next one to see if it is easier and thus guarantee a little more note, then later I go back to the one I left blank, if I remember correctly. If I'm sure I don't know, I don't mistreat my brain. If I don't know or don't remember a question, I skip to the next one to see if it is easier and thus guarantee a little more note, then later I go back to the one I left blank, if I remember correctly. If I'm sure I don't know, I don't mistreat my brain.

- What if I get a low grade, Adam? - asked Angel.

- Why would you take it off, Angelica?

- Do not know. This matter is difficult.

- But if you've read all this, I suppose you're ready.

- I do not know. I'm very scared

- Hmm...

I didn't know what to say.

- Go on, help me, Adam!

- How An-gé-li-ca?

- Do not know...

- Then there's no way.

- Study with me.

- What?

- All these materials here.

- But you haven't studied yet?

- I want to go over it.

- You just read it, Angelica. Do you want to review what is still fresh in your head?

She looked at me with doubts.

- Stop looking like that and stop studying like that. It just makes you more nervous and mixing so much in your head will confuse you at the time of the test.

But she didn't make it! She went to class all nervous and over and over again opened a book and took a quick look at the pages. I didn't know if that irritated me or was it funny. His despair gave this mixture of sensation. The teachers cleaned up the whole semester. Another mix of I don't know what was going on for me: it was the boring test week together with the week where I would have to participate in a program that talked about Twilight. It was during these weeks of exams that the most noticeable is how much a working student suffers. It seems that life humiliates you and that you are the worst of people at the worst of human levels: we get tired, worn out, stressed ... humiliated by the very efforts we make for life.

The next day I was in a bad mood. It was just the dry good afternoon. Benjamim Oliveira did his animated research on Twilight and looked for sources of everything that is place and websites. The angelica continued with her stacks of books, handouts and new copies of pages from other students' notebooks.

Wednesday was the day to show Norman the finished agenda. For every thing she read she readjusted and approved: The guests who will be on stage, the material proposals for the program, what would be asked, everything was being finalized. And the last confirmation before closing the program script:

- And youuuu will be the last guest, soooon. - she spoke looking at me.

It made me sick to my stomach.

At night in college there was the first test. I was in such a bad mood that I took the exam very quickly, and I almost didn't even know what I was writing, but the exam was easy. Angelica sweated and trembled with each question she read and I watched her write frantically in each of her answers. When I left the room, I waited for her to ask how he was doing and what he thought of the test. Everyone left the room but her. It was twenty minutes, thirty, forty, and no Angel. I looked in the glass on the door and saw that there were only three more people, and two of them were waiting, no doubt fed up, for Angel to finish her exam that she still wrote like crazy on the sheets.

Anyway, at the last minute reserved for the race, she left. It was sweaty and worn. I asked him what he thought and what his expectations were.

- Ah - she breathed as we went down the rough ramps to drink and eat something - I'm confident. It was easy to know.

- Because you studied, Angel. And I'm sure that half of what you studied in the test did not fall.

- Not even.

- And tell me: If I ask you everything about what you read, you would know.

- Hummmm ... I don't think so.

- I know. Study only what is to be studied, Angel. For that we have four years of college. What's more, we will never stop studying. There will be time to read a lot. We just can't mix everything, so we don't absorb anything ...

We stopped at one of the expensive college canteens and she drank some black tea. I was calmer after that first test. We still had two more that week and the whole other week just for exams.