3B
Wednesday, November 1, 2017 // The Statement 

Soundtracking: Midterms

M

idterms. The first sign that your 
semester is heading down the toilet 
real quick. It’s like if you were going 

down a slide but as you start your descent, you 
smack your head on the bar and just tumble 
down the slide, lying in a wood chip pile of lost 
GPA points and self-pity. Every time you say 
you’re going to duck, but every time you are sadly 
mistaken.

This semester, I was optimistic. I was hopeful. 

Like a third grader stepping up to bat at their first 
little league game, picturing that ball sailing over 
the fences as the crowd cheers their victory lap, I 
thought success was bound to come my way. Good 
thing many strikeouts were in my future to bring 
me back down to Earth.

I don’t know why, but in the first month of the 

semester, I kept saying I wanted the work to hit 
me already. I was uncomfortable with how little 
the workload was stressing me out. I wanted the 
semester to bodyslam me into submission like it 
inevitably always does. I can’t explain why this 
was the case but suffice it to say, I regret every 
sentence now.

It’s 11:47 p.m. the night before one of my exams. 

After finishing some other assignments also due 
tomorrow, I sit staring at my laptop, prominently 
featuring a study guide file on Canvas. If you look 
into my eyes, the lights are on, but clearly nobody’s 
home. I’m more focused on the clock in the right-
hand corner of the screen. 11:48. 11:49. It takes 
every moral fiber in my body to not pull up some 
Vine compilations and ignore the PDF in front 
of me for a while. By the time my inner conflict 
between studying and the remnants of long-
deceased Vine is resolved, 11:53 has rolled around. 
It’s time.

“Sometime Around Midnight” — The Airborne 

Toxic Event

Working my way through the guide, every 

concept from lecture on the study guide hits me 
with more and more force, and my confusion 
responds accordingly. The professor stressed about 
28 times each lecture how this study guide is just a 
starting point and should not be the sole extent of 
my studying efforts. Seeing as though it is now 12:32 
a.m., my eyelids are already staying closed for longer 
when I blink, and the exam is at noon tomorrow, this 
will be the extent of my work prior to the test.

As I begin to stare off into space, I come to terms 

with the fact that this is my fault and my fault 
alone. No one came into my life and forced me to 
prioritize looking at the course catalog for hours 
on end instead of getting a head start on studying. 
No one offered me life everlasting to procrastinate 
this much. The only person I can directly blame 
for this entire situation is Matt Harmon and that 
dweeb is about to get a strongly worded letter after 
this hour and a half trainwreck tomorrow.

Hours of studying roll by and suddenly it’s 4:00 

a.m. and I’m still wearing a “#1 Grandma” sweater 

and jeans. I check my beard to make sure I didn’t 
wind up spending twenty years staring at that 
study guide. I don’t want to look like Tom Hanks 
in “Castaway” at this point in my life.

As I head to my room and my head hits my 

pillow, thoughts of this exam tomorrow fade out 
of my mind. No sense in stressing during my sleep. 
I set my alarm for 9 a.m. tomorrow to get a full 
breakfast and study a little more before noon. 
Everything fades and my worries melt away.

“Forget About Life” — Alvvays
The sun washes over my covers as my eyes open. 

That’s weird that I woke up before the alarm, 
seeing as though I was up pretty late. Oh well, I’m 
not one to argue with a good thing. I check my 

phone.

11:45 a.m.
Legit end me now.
I throw my blanket off as fast as I can, manage 

to pull my pants up without tripping over myself 
and eating the floor, grab my backpack with two 
#2 pencils for the scantron and a pen for the short 
answer section, and book it out the door with the 
speed of a taxi in a movie when the passenger yells 
“get me to the airport and step on it!” If any two-
ton vehicle wants to become really good friends 
with my body right now, I would gladly accept the 
offer.

“Fast Car” — Tracy Chapman
Sweating, shoulders aching from my backpack 

straps bouncing up and down and slamming into my 
back, I basically burst into the lecture hall at 11:58 
a.m. People have been slowly trickling in, studying 
like the responsible students they are and here I am, a 
shitshow of a person who doesn’t even deserve a study 
guide.

I owe my life to whoever created Michigan time.
I grab a spot in a random row, my friends from 

the class spread out around the room, looking at 
each other and making expressions that say more 
than words. If I had to guess, I’d say most of them 
were thinking “What is this exam, and why is Matt 

sweating so much?”

For about a year and a half in high school, I walked 

around with a penny bouncing around in my shoe. My 
great-grandma always said if you find a penny heads 
up, put it in your shoe and good luck will come your 
way.

Where’s my penny now?
“Lucky Penny” — JD McPherson
I fill out the scantron’s front page with my full 

name. Mathew doesn’t fit in the first name boxes, so 
I have to drop the W. For all intents and purposes, 
Matthe Harmon is about to bomb this bad boy. I feel 
bad for Matthe right now. I bubble in the key number 
and the rest of the sheet and open the exam.

I didn’t know I was taking an exam in a foreign 

language today, but that’s rad. I know my professor 
said the study guide isn’t all that will be on the exam, 
but why did she have to be telling the truth? Some 
of these terms and questions I have never even seen 
before. Call me MF doomed.

An hour and a half passes before you can say “I love 

Reggie the Campus Corgi” and about 75 percent of 
the class takes the full time like me. In the last five 
minutes, almost everyone succumbs to peer pressure 
and rises out of their seats to turn their tests in as a 
collective. Strength in numbers, I guess.

We all look at each other, never having felt more 

united over a travesty like that before.

“Crew” — GoldLink
Flash forward to two weeks from that fateful day. 

I’m sitting in the dining hall on my phone when I get 
an email from my GSI.

Subject line: Matt Exam Issue
He had mentioned something a few days ago in 

section about how grades for the midterm aren’t out 
yet because some people mixed up their key numbers 
on the scantron so they had to recalculate some 
scores. Who in their right mind would mix up a 1 and 
a 2? How in hell could you even mess up that badly?

In the wise words of Jeff Goldblum from “Jurassic 

Park,” “Life, uhhhhhh, finds a way.”

Message: “Dear Matt, you mixed up your key 

numbers on your scantron. From the first grading 
of your multiple choice section, you got 21 out of 80 
points.”

“Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad” — Prince
I look up from my phone, my jaw almost smacking 

into the table below. What did I ever do to deserve 
this life? Who did I wrong? Did I accidentally upset 
some witch or force beyond my control that decided 
to make it their life duty to make sure Matt screws 
up in every possible way? It must have been Matthe 
that filled the scantron out wrong. Matt or Matthew 
would never do that but Matthe probably wants to see 
me fail.

I keep reading. “We assumed this was a mix-up and 

regraded your midterm. This will not happen again if 
you mess up your scantron on the final. BTW, you did 
well on your midterm.”

“Sweet” — Brockhampton.
Matthe, you done good, kid.

BY MATT HARMON, DAILY STAFF REPORTER

ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY HARDIE

