The Comprehensive Exam is Oh-vah!

I can't help feeling like something of a schmuck. There were two possibilities for me to answer, and only two of the works were even on the freaking test (one work per!). No cross-comparisons; no compare/contrast. Just "Give me the dirt on women in Frankenstein" and "So what's the big deal with the witches in Macbeth?"

Well, I chose the Frankenstein one, and managed to fill up an entire blue book (both sides of the pages, doublespaced) that, I think, more or less answered the question. My brain never really got above second gear, though (hardly a surprise to me, considering my mental drive in last year's exam), and as a result, I kept thinking that my answer, while covering all the bases, seemed overly simplistic. I mean, I wasn't even inserting Lacanism, or that much Freudianism. I wasn't introducing the concept of the gaze, I didn't address Foucault's theories, and I didn't even fucking mention the word "antidisestablishmentarianism," much less "textual instabilities." So what gives?

Well, I'll tell you what gives:

If I fail the test again, I have to take another 15 hours here at good ole NIU before I can take it a third time. So I'm thinking that, if I do fail (God forbid), I'm just going to have to go back to school anyway. I mean, it's a lit exam that I should be able to pass. If I can't, there's something wrong with teh repository of information I'm supposed to have shoved into this cranial crap-bin I call a brain. Last year, after the exam, I always figured that I'd substitute teach out here and study full-time if I failed, but then Discover Card called me and scheduled an ass-kicking appointment to remind me of my pecuniary obligations. So that didn't work out. Thus I wasn't able to put in the kind of hours I'd have liked to in studying for this test.

But the question was so simplistic, that if I don't pass, I'm just going to have to go back to the basics. What a shame: no more tardy forms, detentions and field trips through LP. I think my heart is breaking.

No, it's not. It's just that sirloin I had for lunch before the test. Mmm, sirloin.