Bathroom Prayer

I speak to you from the glorious "other side!"

My transport test is over. I studied for a few hours yesterday afternoon, and after wrapping up shell/integral balances (as best I could), I was finished. No more to study, and my cheat sheets were covered with every equation I could possibly need or understand. So I watched the Steelers lose painfully, munched exquisite Oke-Doke popcorn imported from Chicago, and caught up on some AIM and critical writing. A profitable and liesurely evening capped off with bed at 1am.

I awoke this morning fairly well, not dead drained tired like I was Monday morning. It was a serious letdown when the lady at Einstein's forgot to turn on the espresso machine, depriving me of my anticipated cappuccino, but my crestfallen look must have touched her, 'cause she gave me a free large coffee, which was *almost* as good. My fingers are stiff and twitchy from said beverage now, as I type this up in the 10th floor computer lab.

On the strength of that large coffee I soaked in an intense biochem class, constantly a few seconds or thoughts away from utterly losing the relentless stream of information pouring out of Dr. Koepsel's mouth. For about 30 painful seconds I did lose him, and it took some serious mental effort to not panic and to force his words to stay in my brain 'till I could again start piecing them together and understanding them. Kinda like

With my brain warmed up and my body jacked up, I entered 1221 Benedum, the fabled Frank Mosier Learning Center, 12 floors above the rain-drenched cloud-soaked landscape of concrete Oakland. We waited, we chatted, we arranged pencils and calculators, and gave each other encouraging smiles. Or despairing ones, depending on your capacity for handling stress. At last Dr. McCarthy walked in, bearing our fate in a stack of papers in his arms. He flopped one down on the desk in front of me, and Transport Phenomena Exam II had begun.

I could only do 1 of the first 3 problems. Then I knocked out the next one like an anemic engineer in a kung fu tournament. The last problem was 67% ok, and that nasty third was faked somewhat well :-) Then I took a bathroom break and gave out a quick, honest prayer in the echoing walls and tiled floor, for understanding and remembrance. I knew the answers were down in my brain...unsteady mass transport from the center of a sphere was like the face of an old friend you know, but can't remember their name.

That little prayer was answered. I came back, stepped back, thought, started writing, and lo and behold, the tricksey, neat little answer came out! I wrapped it up, figured out the second of the two problem problems, and was done with the test in an hour! Then I checked it over, fixed some bad errors, clarified some stuff, and turned it in with 30 minutes to spare.

Thank you Lord for answering the prayer of an under-studied over-stressed chemical engineer!

And thanks for the coffee, too - I know You worked through that just as powerfully as anything else :-)

--John "it's over" Behrens