With the start of a new semester, I can now look back on last semester's finals and conclude one thing'I messed up. Let me clarify, I did not get the grades I wanted, because I messed up.
At this point, I could launch into a cautionary tale about how you should study and work in life'and that will earn you all you deserve. I'm not going there though. Sure, I didn't study, but that had very little to do with my lower grades. I messed up because I did not stick to my pre-test ritual.
My ritual consists of several small strategies that when linked together bump me up at least an entire letter grade. On test days, I simply make certain the following events occur'I must wear a concert T-shirt, I must NOT listen to anything by Jesse Malin (including his work with D-Generation and The Finger), and immediately before the test I'll listen to 'Land of Hopes and Dreams' by Bruce Springsteen.
Please note, I've never tried wearing my Jesse Malin T-shirt on a test day, but I'm pretty certain a combination like that would cause the earth to stop spinning on its axis.
I don't claim to know why this ritual works. I just know I've been busily crafting and refining it since 11th grade. I'd assume it has something to do with the gods of testing realizing that Bruce Springsteen rocks quite a bit, and this is their way of rewarding Bruce's faithful' but I've never had a chance to test this hypothesis.
It's a simple regiment, but I must have gotten too cocky last semester and didn't stick to the plan. When I went off to take one final, I forgot my disc with the Springsteen song at home. I had time to go back and get it, but I didn't'this angered the testing gods.
Even through my sporting a Tom Petty shirt, and Jesse Malin not coming anywhere near my ears, these vengeful gods let loose and rained down their tyranny on me, forcing me to do poorly on the tests.
I'm not actually fooling myself here. I realized the clothes I wear and the music I listen to has very little effect on my knowledge of topics'no matter the support I receive from the testing gods. I know this whole ritual is based upon a single test where I wore a concert shirt and did well on it. I know I didn't do well because I sported Bob Dylan'no matter how cool he is.
All this ritual does is delude myself into performing better on tests. I know that no matter how much the testing gods dislike Jesse Malin'which they shouldn't, because he's the greatest musician nobody's heard of'my lack of listening to him doesn't actually improve my grades. If anything it harms it, because I get lazy and use my testing ritual as a way of saying I'll do well on the tests when I won't. Yet, I still do this ritual on every test.
But those tests are in the past. It's a new year, a new semester, and I know I have a whole lot of Springsteen to listen to make up for last semester.
