Come here often?

I am right in the middle of taking my comprehensive exams and thereby winding down with grad school. In fact, in about three hours I will be taking part in my oral exams, the final section of the exams. I'm excited to be done with them, to say the least.

But, I have to share some humorous experiences that I've had taking these exams. The last two weekends we've had take-home essays as part of it. We have a couple hours to write on each section (no notes, no books). So, since at home I feel rather distracted and not so ambitious or intellectual, I packed up my laptop and headed to Starbucks the first weekend. I made a point to head to a coffee shop in a different suburban area than where I'd encounter other Wheaton students. I got my coffee and was happy to see that this shop even had a semi-partitioned off section. I cozied up and felt a little private to take my test. Well, about 5 minutes after I had tore into that envelope with my test question a couple who was just screaming with insecurity walked in and sat down right across from me. There sat on two living room chairs with a coffee table between them. After arguing about who gets the chair facing the rest of the coffee shop (to which I turned up the volume on my headphones and missed the conclusion of that discussion), about five minutes later the guy moves over and sits with the girl on her tiny little chair. They then proceed to take part in touching and kissing activities to which I'll leave out to keep this G rated. By now, I'm feeling a little bit uncomfortable. I try turning up the volume, shifting in my chair, leaning my head on one hand so I can't see them out of the corner of my eye, trying to focus on my exam! Eventually I look over and ask them if they wouldn't mind doing that somewhere else. I got a LOOK from behind the heavily make-uped eyes of the girl. So, I moved myself to the other side of the coffee shop and the couple made their way out the door soon after. I finished the rest of my essay in peace.

This weekend my exams were longer and had some breaks in between. I spent part of them at the library and part at Caribou coffee. At caribou after I had grabbed my coffee and was plugging in my computer this curly-haired undergrad sat right next to my table and joked about my computer (which was the same as mine). He started to gab on and on and was asking me about myself and started to ask if I'd like to grab a drink (was he old enough, I thought). I told him I had a lot to do and put my headphones on. Then, five hours later after I had finished my exam (yeah!) I was packing up my stuff and there was another guy near my table who struck up a conversation with me (also inquiring about my computer...it kind of had that "cute dog" affect I guess). He proceeded to ask if I come to the coffee shop often and next time I come in if I'd like to get a cup of coffee with him and talk! (and may I interject that he is from North Africa, most likely Muslim. Ironic, given my line of work.)

So, I drove home, laughing outloud. What an experience. I have spent hundreds of hours studying at coffeeshops and nothing remotely like these two days has ever occurred. Then when I am taking the biggest exams of my grad school career, the men swarm like bees. I wonder if there was something on those exam papers?!