But that was precisely what Dina did not want to think about.
Better to think of the sea. She was hoping to visit her favorite Feodosia again this summer, once she had finished her internship and saved up enough money. Even her mom had promised to help. Awesome! This was so awesome!
Her near future definitely looked bright and alluring. Yet why could she not let go of the present?
* * *
Dina took a question sheet from the table.
The question sheet was not too hard, well, as much as it could be for a very difficult subject. Dina was not scared of any of the topics since she had studied thoroughly and was confident in her abilities. She always completed all the exercises on time and started working on them straight away, not leaving them until the last day or week. She never skipped a class, and she would attend university even if she did not feel well so that she would not miss something that was not written in the textbooks, something that only a master of their craft could tell her. The very fact of her attention to these significant, or even insignificant, details of the studied subjects, tended to flatter the lecturers and garner her extra affection. The teachers liked Dina. Not only for her responsible approach to study and solid knowledge, but also for her calm and friendly nature.
Dina took the question sheet and walked towards the last table.
The students attending this exam used only the last tables. Everyone knew that this was the way Konstantin Konstantinovich Kolotozashvili liked it. Firstly, the student answering thus didn’t unintentionally disrupt the person preparing for the exam, and secondly, this way the teacher could more easily spot the ones using cheat sheets.
Although he insisted himself: “You must write cheat sheets!”
Yes, that’s exactly what he had said. “I strongly recommend that you write cheat sheets when preparing for the exam. But woe to the person, who brings them to the exam!”
“So why should we write cheat sheets,” the students would ask, “if we cannot use them?”
“Because,” Konstantin Konstantinovich had said, “a properly prepared cheat sheet is a concentrate, an essence…” He loved to wrap even everyday concepts in terms related to his subject, “an essence that is easier to remember, and which requires only the addition of a verbal broth to become the solid information, from which it was made.”