OOMPAPA OOMPAPA YAH!

It was 7:45am and I was on my usual morning route through the biosci building. THe frogs stared at me in silent rebuff. I could see the pity in their eyes as if they sensed my nervousness. I was to have my anatomy midterm this morning. I braced myself for the cold as I walked outside to cross the street to the Agriculture building. This being the U of Saskatchewan, it is by far the nicest building on campus. Inside, a huge banner had been put up which proudly proclaimed, “IT’S BEAN FEED WEEK!” I scratched my head and furrowed my brow, then gave up on trying to understand the aggies.

Finally, I reached the vet college. Inside, my classmates were already bustling about like decapitated chickens. Eveyrone was nervous about our first ever anatomy exam. Not only did we have to remember where all the organs were, what they looked like, and how they were innervated or vascualrised, we had to remember that information for all the different farm and companion animals. It was a nightmare.

I settled into a seat in the backrow of the lecture theater. Once a back rower, always a back rower. In front of me, Lisa, a lovely sweet-voiced blonde classmate of mine was chatting it up with two other people about how nervous they all get before exams. “Vivian’s like me. She gets all quiet and curls into a fetal position before exams too, right Viv?”

“I do not!!!” I defensively answered back, then sat quietly in my seat and tried to make myself look as small as possible. I noticed that I was sweating out of nervousness. “Crap! Did I remember to put on deodorant this morning?!” I fretted, then felt better about it when Nathan (aka the smelly kid in my class) sat down beside me. At least I wouldn’t be alone.

Nathan wrinkled his nose at me.

Damn, I did forget the deodorant.

The TAs handed out the test and began telling us about typos on page 12 of our exam. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. Then again, I don’t think anyone did. Why is it that TAs in courses where I need help, never speak ENGLISH?! I don’t hold it against them. They are truly trying to be helpful. More than anything, I blame the system. It’s like they purposely assign me the underground TAs that didn’t quite pass the TOEFL but who have been snuck into the country anyhow and have names that I would have to rip out my own tongue to pronounce correctly. I believe the staff hiring system at Subway works in much the same manner.

Exactly two hours later, I put down my pencil with a breath of relief. IT had been a hard test. “You are done, yes Vivian?” asked my TA. I handed mine and smelly kid’s test to my TA and wondered how the hell he knew my name. Must’ve been the time I got into the argument with him in the anatomy lab about the thyroid and parathyroid and thymus. He thought I was asking about the hypothalamus. Good times. Good times.

Anyhow, I took up my stuff and left the lecture theatre to bump into another girl from my class. “We’re going to Louis’s right now! Wanna come?” Louis’s was the campus bar. I figured I had nothing to lose by showing up to my afternoon classes drunk. “Of course!”

I wandered with her and a few other people down across campus to the bar where the rest of my class sat. They were all in various states of inebriation already.

An hour later, I was full and surprisingly, not drunk. I decided it was amusing enough watching everyone else get pissed and that getting pissed myself would only lessen the experience. In particular, one guy in my class who is usually pretty quiet struck up a rather amusing conversation with me about science fiction shows.

"Sho then I watshch Shtar Gate and Shtar Trek. Shtar Gate'sh AWESHUM MAN!"

"That's nice. Aaron, how much have you drunk?"

"Aw, only about shix pintsh. I'm fiiiiine," said Aaron as he grabbed a wall to regain his balance.

"Right. So, uh, which star treks do you watch then?"

"VOYAGER man. Ish aweshum. And Shtar Gate ish awshum cus they make fun of the other shience nerd showsh."

"wow, I don't know what's worse. Geeks watching geeky shows or geeks watching geeky shows tha tmake fun of geeks."

He seemed highly amused by that, but wasn't deterred. He went on to explain exactly how Star Gate makes fun of the inaccuracies in other science fiction shows. I knew in my head that he would be regretting this conversation tomorrow, if he remembered it.

MEanwhile, another two of my classmates were busy chatting away to each other in faked German accents.

"Unt yah! Isn't it so saad that they don't have ze octoberfesht here yah?"

"Unt ya. Ve could all be sitting arround a table vith our beer singing OOM PAPA OOMPAPA YAH!"

"Yah."

"Yah."

"Oh, ve should go up to cowboys and tell zem how sexy zey are!"

"Oh, yah, that is a bbig belt buckle yah!"

"Unt you know vut zey say about men vith big belt buckles . . ."

Oh it was priceless. I sat there in a bemused state and chatted with the drunk sci-fi guy and smelly kid beside me.
All in all, it made the pain and suffering of the exam all worth it. I thought to myself, "Maybe vet school isn't going to be so bad."

That remains to be seen.