Waiting for a Test

(Scrawled in my notebook during the dead period between a class and my Organic Chemistry test on Monday night.)

Further study is useless at this point but my brain cannot hold still.
I spent the entire preceding two hours studying in class. I still missed nothing, and not because of amazing multitasking. Here I sit on concrete steps, trying to think of anything but substitution, elimination, and dehydrohalogenation.
My MP3 player, on shuffle, plays Andy McKee. His complex rhythms and melodies blend with the raindrops splashing in the puddle in front of me. Night has fallen, but remnants of daylight linger in the western sky. The onion dome of the mosque gleams ivory in the damp dusk, and lights illuminating it reflect in shimmering streaks on the surface of the rain-drowned lake. The call to prayer rattles from loudspeakers, competing with both the music in my headphones and the rain ringing the sheet-metal roof above me.
Ten minutes remain until the scheduled beginning of the test, and a total of four people have arrived. I'm not surprised, even though at S&T nearly everyone would have come at least ten minutes ago. Punctuality is not exactly a high priority in this culture, and I expect that the test will start ten minutes late. Even my calculus T.A. who literally yells at people if they are a minute late, was himself fifteen minutes late this morning. I had given up on him, assuming that the class had been canceled without notice, as my previous class had been. Sadly, just as I left I met him coming in and felt obliged to return to class.
The time has come. "Waiting for a Train" by Hans Zimmer from Inception plays, and I smile sardonically as I walk inside to face my fate.