Like a thunderbolt he falls
I had forgotten just how great it is -- the feeling of acing a test that isn't ridiculously easy. I took my first test in Cultural Geography today, which required a healthy amount of map work regarding Europe and Russia and knowing a great deal about the evolution of the European Union, and for the first time since I came to college, I really feel like I nailed the exam. The best part was that all my ninth grade memory tricks came flooding back to me without even my thinking about them -- the crocodile zig-zagging (Zagreb, Croatia), the walrus flopping around with a mink biting its tail (Minsk, Belarus), the salad in a hammock (Bucharest, Romania), the locusts destroying crops (Budapest, Hungary), the stone griffin (Talinn, Estonia) and the Swiss Miss with her braids on fire (Bern, Switzerland.) I zipped through the map work like a Japanese bullet train. The best part was being able to remember the exact years when all of the countries joined the European Union, as well as the exact reasons and locations for all the capitals. As I've noted often, "You can't out-compromise Belgium!" (Not to be confused with the statement "This campus has worse drainage than Bangladesh!" or "There is no such thing as an unimportant Post-it note!" Though I've noticed I do tend to write an inordinate number of things down . . .)