What's one thing in America that can put your situation to such an extreme that you either want to jump from the top of Cathedral of Learning or want to throw your professors from there? What's one thing in America that can make you feel so self-destructive, so cynical about life, so psychotic that the words 'murder', 'kill', 'hang', 'jump' and 'strangle' become a part of every sentence you speak? What's one thing in America that makes you lose interest in food, bath and daylight to such an extent that you end up persisting only on chocolate and orange juice for 2 whole days? No, its not your girlfriend ... its something called as a take-home exam!

A take-home exam is one ... which no matter where you take it to ... home or the student lounge or Falk Library or the Cathedral or to the zoo ... it never ever makes sense! Why the heck do they give us a take-home? They can give us a closed-book exam and we'L just use our creative 'Indian' techniques for copying. But no ... they want to make it open-book ... let us use all resources from the Internet to their lecture notes to every available resource on this planet and several other planets ... but make the paper horrendously tough ... so tough that maintaining a girlfriend would be considered far more easier.

I was wondering ... what's the common thing between a take-home and a girlfriend? Both end up taking all your time and effort ... both leave you horribly sad at the end of the day ... both are extremely tough to deal with ... every question asked is so tricky, it has so many dimensions that any answer you choose is invariably the wrong one ... and both last not for more than 2 days!

But what's the difference between take-homes and girlfriends? Not much, except for the fact that take-home exams are not stupid!

So i had my first such exam this week ... my first ever ... and believe me ... you will not like it. My room-mate had it a few days back ... a normally enthusiastic ... fun-loving ... let's fool around type guy that he was ... i suddenly saw him transforming into someone totally different ... like a man turning into a werewolf ... he looked miserable ... any amount of my coffee wouldn't change his skin color which had gone pale ... only orange juice ... no bath ... no life ... take homes can do that to you. They are like the dementors (the ones from Harry Potter) which suck the life out of you. I am just done with one ... no reason to smile ... i have an assignment and 2 exams hell-bent to make my life more miserable. The moment I have enough money ... am booking a ticket and going back to Bangalore forever! I may have to push an onion-cart there ... but atleast I don't have to answer any such exams!