With or Without

14. Pok

Exams were evil. It was the only conclusion I could come to. They didn't enhance the university experience. They definitely didn't make it easier on the students. Especially if you had the misfortune of being the kind of person who got nervous before an exam or during an exam or after an exam. You were more likely to fail regardless of whether you knew the content or not.

I was just glad we had orals as often as we had written exams. When the worst came to the worst you could bullshit your way through it and our examiners gave extra points for creativity.

The only thing worse than my exams was watching Tong go through his. If mine were bad, his were a form of torture at the very least. But he was accustomed to it in a way that left me in awe of his many, many good qualities. That led to me wanting to distract him from his many, many good qualities. Unfortunately, that involved him throwing me out of his room and telling me to go do my studying elsewhere.

I have no idea why he didn't shout at me. He said it in this conspiratory whisper; like he was afraid someone was listening in on us. I pitied anyone who had nothing better to do than that. If they listened in often enough, they would probably get an earful of a lot more than us arguing about study time.

Thinking about that made me want to go back to Tong's room and distract him some more. It was safe to assume that he was on the right track by keeping me at arm's length. I still called him every morning to wish him a good day. I made sure he had lunch and dinner even though there were more times that I had to threaten him to take a break.

In the end, he finished his papers before me. I was looking forward to whatever was going to happen after. There was nothing like celebrating having endured so many torture sessions and coming out alive. I could invite Tong to focus his many, many good qualities on making us feel good.

How did everyone think swimming was difficult when there were people like Tong walking around?