ge A £birictniae Story ees

Malcolm Gorrill

Poor Clio »e UPEI freshman stu- nt) went home at Christ-

break a very worried fel- -

. His parents had told » that if he did not average least 72.4 in his courses, would have to pay his own tion, Christmas Eve came jthose marks hadn’t come 1

That evening Clio went his bedroom and found

two brothers. fighting. yin, 12, was teasing Wen- i], 8, who still believed

Santa Claus. Clio broke m up and ordered Kevin leave Wendell alone as it s Christmas. Wendell im- bred of Clio: “There is Santa Claus, isn’t there?” o calmed Wendell down d tucked him into bed.

“Is there a Santa Claus?” o thought as he went to 1. What a ridiculous ques- n, That was kid’s stuff. ,when would those marks n (Yer

By Cheryl Allen

It is seven o’clock. Hun- rds of university students e finished supper, scuf- around the house and’ settling down “to study their finals. The stereo i television are turned off, the first time all semester. pbks ae opened and, now, ic. At this point, three inet categories of stu- ts can be detected: slack- | whiz kids and “potty” ures. The ordinary stu- t is not mentioned in this icle because of the lack of jects. The slackers study very

all semester and are now ght with an overwhelm- amount of knowledge to b’ram into their brains. a result, stress and anxi- symptoms emerge. Some these students binge on d. They stuff cookies, s and anything else within

Clio was having his usual Christmas Eve dreams of gifts, sugar plums and girls when he suddenly became very hungry. He went down to the kitchem to prepare his usual midnight snack of broc- coli and peanut butter sand- wiches. Suddenly he heard a noise in the living room and went to investigate.

Clio couldn’t believe his eyes. There, in front of the him, was a grey-bearded man in a red suit! It couldn't be...yet it was! Santa Claus!

Just then Santa turned around, saw Clio, chuckled, and dashed up the chimney. Clio tried to run after him...

The next thing Clio knew someone was shaking him. ‘Wake ney, Clio! Wake up!”

“What!?!” Clio said, sit- ting upright.

“You must have had a dream.” Kevin said. “Come

reach into their mouths, hop- ing to satisfy the gnaw- ing teeth in their stom- achs. Others smoke heav- ily and most end up with brain block. They can’t re- member anything they study and seme even forget their names. -After the initial panic is over, slackers even- tually settle down to the un- avoidable task of pounding a semesters worth of knowl- edge into their heads. This is usually not as difficult as

it first appeared to be. Even whiz kids, students

who engage in heavy study sessions all semester, become victims of pre-exam blues. They shut their stereos off by habit. The silence is not a new experience for them. They are depressed because they know that a three-hour ‘exam is not long enough to pour out a worth of knowledge.

semester's Stress

on, let’s go down to the tree. It’s Christmas Day!”

Clio was about to go down when he noticed some- thing on his shirt. He felt it. Broccol! Suddenly Clio re- membered. But it couldn’ t be!..

Just then Clio heard a.

shout from his parents, and he raced down. There, un- der the tree, was Clio’s re- port card. He had made an average of 72.6. Hurrah!

While his parents were wondering how Clio’s card could have gotten there, Clio overheard Keven again tease Wendell about Santa Claus. Wendell again asked Clio that immortal question.

Clio thought for a mo- ment, looked at his boccoli and his report card, and said: “Yes, Wendell, there is a Santa Claus!”

Merry Christmas, every- body! from Malcolm Gorrill.

PERSONAL OPINION:

I am replying to the let- ter published in the last is- sue of the Gem. This letter stated that the Gem need not deal with anything outside the university and that the Guardian need only the Island. I completely dis- agree with this opinion.

CUver

I feel that a newspaper’s responsibility is to cover is- sues across the country be it a university or a city pa- per.. Mr Blackett stated, “the Guardian only needs

to cover the island , so it should not be compared to the Globe and Mail, the New York Times.” This is

a ridiculous statement sim- ply because cone cannot pos- sibly compare these impor- tant national papers to the Guardian. His opinion is narrow-minded, conservative and counter-productive to the interests of the Gem and the Guardian. Hopefully, it does not reflect the general Island attitude.

Pre-Exam Blues

and anxiety in these students stems from the simple fact that they know they have to study, but they don’t want to add too much more in- formation to their already overflowing wells of knowl- edge. The whiz kids deal with stress somewhat differ- ently than the slackers. They are known to tap tunes on their desk with a pen, read a book, or cook a gourmet meal. They may also eat carrot sticks. Sometimes all their knowledge begins to scramble in their heads and then flow onto paper in the form of poetry. This last ef-

fect is beneficial to the whiz

kids because, finally, they can settle down to reorganiz- ing their knowledge, withour worrying about adding new information to their already over-manufactured minds.

Whatever the causes of these two forms of pre-exam

_after exams.

blues, the effects usually ben- efit the students. They end up studying hard and enter- ing the exam room with a cool head and a smooth pen- cil. For some odd reason, however, these same stu- dents leave the exam room with major complaints about the test and a taxi fare to the nearest bar.

There are still some stu-

dents who don’t benefit from

the pre-exam blues. They are more commonly known as the “potty” failures. They panic before, during and Their pre- exam blues usually stems from early childhood. The “potty” failures were ex- pected to be right on aim ev- ery time and were probably punished for accidents. This experience taught them to always expect perfection and become extremely frustrated

National and_ interna- tional news is interesting and can be stimulating and provocative. These are es- sential ingredients to a good paper. Many students at- tending the university are not from the province and may be interésted in issues outside PEI.

Also with reference to Mr. Blackett’s comment “who cares what people from Ontario think about island newspapers, I’m sure they don’t care what we think of their newpapers.” Prince Edward Island is not a seg- regated society and should learn to grow with the rest of the nation.

I feel that our Island pa- pers should offer more vari- ety with concerns to more liberal issues; a paper reflec- tive of the times. Once this occurs, our Gem or Guardian could be compared to other papers around the country.

Signed JI.W. & M.L.

with any small failure. Their feelings of anxiety were nur- tured and carried into uni- versity. Now the student spends so much time worry- ing about studies that he or

she never has time to actu- ally dig into the books. Thus, the pre-exam blues will make no difference in this students life. The “potty” failure does not even bring a taxi fare on the night of his or her exam becasue the side-effect of drinking may lead to a recurrence of a problem en- countered earlier in life.

Whichever category you fall into, try not to let the blues get you down. There are two routes you can take to overcome the pre-exam blues: switch to psychology and learn to control your anxiety or become an engi-

neer.

hursday, November 26 1987

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