Midterms, oh midterms
How I wish you were like Christmas
Full of presents and food
Not coffee and stress

This morning when I woke up, I had this nagging feeling that perhaps the first exam I had to give today was not for my Jr. high science class, which I had stayed up until 12 making, but my high school science class. I mentally reviewed my midterm exam schedule and then dismissed my second guessing as pre-midterm strain. But the feeling didn't go away. As I walked into school my anxiety grew and yet I was confident I would be proven wrong.

I wasn't.

Crap. My intuition had been right. My first exam was high school science, a test that I had not written yet because I thought it was tomorrow. I looked at my watch. It was 8 o'clock. My exam was at 10:15. I had two hours two write two separate versions of the exam, make copies and staple them together. Usually, it takes me at least two and a half hours to make a test, but this was an exam. Could I write two in that amount of time? I decided I might, just might be able to pull it off.

I sat at my desk for the first five minutes unable to do anything other than mutter "crap, crap, crap" and occasionally hit myself in the head. Then in a flurry of papers and books I frantically started working. I decided that the first exam I would write would be for the class that had better English and had gone farther in the book. When I finished with that one it would be easy to delete and revise more difficult questions for the lower language class.

An hour and a half later, around 9:30 I had most of that exam finished. As I printed it off my computer I started on the next one. Time was not on my side. The bell rang at 10 to signify the end of the first exam period and students came flooding in for their 15 minute break. I was almost finished... almost. When a few of them asked me to answer their last minute questions they got a curt "now is not the time" sort of answer. I flew out of the room, papers trailing after me and dashed down to the copy machine. 10:11. Two different test would take longer than usual. 10:23. I was back in my classroom passing the tests out, almost passing out myself.

I slumped into my chair. I had done it, the impossible. My hand were shaking from the adrenaline rushing through my body and I felt giddy. I wanted to laugh hysterically and dance around the room for the relief of it all.

I have yet to review the exam to see just what sort of monster I created in that short amount of time. Truthfully, at the moment I don't care. All I know is that I miraculously I made two exams totaling twelve pages in two hours. I'll deal with the stupidity of my tests later.