Exams are always a gold mine!

[Merc_With_A_Mouth_69]

The other day, I was writing my National Certification Exam with the Canadian Society for Medical Laboratory Science which is the last formal exam I (hopefully) will ever have to write! (I know, I know, please, hold your applause until the end)

Anyway, this exam was 5 and a half hours long, and during that time, various sniffs and sneezes were running rampant, as are wont to happen in the course of any exam. Due to the nature of the program I took at school, where everyone in the program had the same prescribed classes, and therefore we all spent the whole day, every day together, I had formed a nice mental Rolodex of almost everyone's sneezes and could tell whose was whose, even from across a room when I can't see the sneezer. As such, during this exam it was no different discerning from whom the sneezes came.

First Heather. She's 27 and she has dirty blonde hair, blue/grey eyes, and a perfect runner's butt of which Scarlett Johansson would be jealous. I'd gotten to know her somewhat muffled "Heh-KMMPHFF" that she'd always stuff into her sweater sleeve cuffs pretty well over the years, and when I heard that beautiful sound from all the way across the room, about 15-20 minutes into the exam, my heart skipped a few beats. I waited patiently for the second one that almost always followed, and I was not disappointed. "Heh-KMMMPHFF!" She sneezes twice every day, no more, no less, (well, ok, maybe about 90% of the time, but still... ) so, as expected, there were no more from her that day, unfortunately.

Next came Brittney about half an hour later. She's average height/build, Caucasian, has curly brown ringlets cascade down around her face, and she has the brightest, most vibrantly blue eyes I have ever seen. She hardly ever sneezes, so I may not have recognised the next sneeze as hers if she had not been sitting right behind me. Although she has a lovely, melodious singing voice, her sneeze lacks any vocal quality. It sounds like someone letting air out of a pressurized hose, or a 2-liter bottle of pop being opened. "TSSSSSSSH!" An odd sound to be sure, but the spray I felt on the back of my neck was worth it.

Not 10 minutes after that, my best friend RJ decided to throw his 2 cents into the hat in the ring. (filled mixed metaphors, apparently) He's Filipino, 22, stocky and muscular, and mostly just a cool guy. I'm not attracted to him, but sometimes that way I talk about him, and to him, makes him one of those friends that makes my family have slight doubts about my sexuality. Haha. Anyway, I only mention him because I was absently looking across the room trying to remember scientific formulae, when his eyes caught mine and we shared a look that said "ZOMGosh! This exam though, right?" (paraphrasing, of course) and just as I was about to look back down at my paper, when his face crunched up and he let out a "HURRSCHOO!"

No obs would be complete without realising I had a tickle in my own nose and, forgetting how much stifling hurts, tried to keep quiet in the exam. I only managed to stifle the first "NgKah!" before I had to let out a full-blown "Hah-CHEH!" into the back of my hand as I tried to hold my papers from being blown onto the floor.

But the real start of this obs is Brenda. Let me start off by saying that even though she's 23, everything about her is tiny. She's just under 5 feet tall, has the smallest, cutest little button nose, and probably only weighs about 6 kilograms. And she sneezes all the time. Not a day went by, in the entire time we were in the program together, that she sneezed less than 7 times per day, but it was usually more. Not even exaggerating. She always sat fairly close to me, and she was even my lab partner for two of our classes. She's the kindest, friendliest person, and she has the nicest smile. If I hadn't gone to her wedding about six months after meeting her, I would have been sooo in love with her... But, back on topic, her sneezes, like the rest of her, are incredibly petite. About an hour into the exam, they started. "hih-chih!" (such a small, mouse-like sound, I can't even use capital letters to describe it.) She always sneezes in singles, but where there's one, there is always more to follow shortly afterward. For the rest of the day, every 5, 10, or 15 or so minutes, another "hih-chih!" came from two desks away, and every time, I couldn't help being very distracted... I still think I did pretty well on my exam, but I did not need that distracting me. I will miss her though, now that school is done and I'm getting ready to enter the workforce. Haha.

[MoonDuck]

I read this topic and it was like *flashback to finals* Nice obs, these are like the only good part about exams

[sneezychick]

Wow! Lots of sneezes. Do you ever bless any of your classmates?

[Snufaleeze]

I love rooms with a bunch of sneezy people! Now I'm kind of excited for exams...

[Merc_With_A_Mouth_69]

Wow! Lots of sneezes. Do you ever bless any of your classmates?

Sometimes, if I can find a way to make it funny.