The Foreign Service Written Examination - Saturday
I climbed out of bed at 6:40am, the room bathed in gray light through the uncurtained window. I took a shower under water that was just a little too hot; oddly, though there was no fan, the steam cleared quickly. There's nothing I hate quite the same way as post-shower humidity; this was a good omen for the rest of the day. I dressed, ate my pre-planned breakfast - a Jimmy John's Slim 1 and a 20oz Dr Pepper - at my brother's desk, and was out the door by 7:26am.

I walked to Angell Hall as I have a thousand times before, and from there whatever dramatic expectations I'd had, foolish though they may have been, were thoroughly dashed. A wizened old lady and a girl my age in one of those atrocious hooded sweater-coats lead a group of us through Angell, past the Fishbowl, and into Mason Hall. Even twenty minutes before the examination began, the second-floor hallway was filled with people I've known all my life: the overachiever with his decorative leather portfolio, the girl in warm-ups whose face is painted despite the fact that it's early morning on a Saturday, the frat boy with a fashionable amount of stubble and a backwards visor, the bald twenty-five year old in a Made in Detroit brand sweatshirt (I'm assuming he's a metal fan).

We were divided into three groups by the first letter of our last name; I was in P-Z. Mason Hall, room 1427. If I never had a discussion section in that actual classrooom, I did in that very hallway. They checked our official registration letter and phot identification at the door to each classroom and assigned us seats. Standard chairs with attached desks. "Are you left handed?" The lefty desks are, fittingly, located at the left end of each row. No one is wearing a suit and tie. There's no Frank Oz. The proctors look as sleepy as the rest of us. This is nothing like Spies Like Us. There are instructions. No. 2 pencils and black ink pens only, if your cell phone or pager goes off, you'll be asked to leave and your results invalidated. No hats. All coffee cups and backpacks along the sides of the room. A few whispered jokes from the people who can't tolerate two minutes of silence in a room full of strangers.

As the day progressed, on five separate answer booklets, I signed my name and agreed not to divulge any information about the contents of the exam, presumably to enemy agents, maybe to a friend who, unbeknownst to me, is a Red sympathizer. You can't be too careful. I may have already said too much. I might already be a security leak. I might be going away for awhile.

Imagine taking five finals in one day, only they aren't testing any specific set of facts and figures that you've been cramming into your brain for the last ten weeks, but the general knowledge you have alredy rattling around in your head. They're judging you, as Michael Feldman would say, "For being who you are and knowing what you know." A few rudimentary economic questions, no math more complicated than you can do in your head. A glaringly disproportionate number of questions about intraoffice interactions. The State Department is more concerned with office politics than global politics? Multiple guess Scantron, followed by two essays, lunch, more Scantrons. English expression to end the day. Once you're done, you can leave, you don't have to wait for the whole test period. No one can leave in the final five minutes. Once you leave this room, I can't let you back in, thr proctor intones; so, be sure you have everything with you. My hand was still a little cramped from the essays.

We file out. We disperse. For my part at least, I was a little wasted, as much from the lack of sleep as the stress fo the exam, but felt restored to health and youthful vigor once I'd indulged in that classic exilir, Taco Bell. Chapulas for a better tomorrow. The sun was shining. It was a beautiful day in Ann Arbor. Results in late July. Happy birthday, Mike. My first choice for the interrogation (oral assessment) portion, should I earn a satisfactorily high score on the FSWE: Chicago (I can crash with Danny Boy); second choice: Washington D.C. (my sister). I'm not sure what Allan Foster Dulles would have thought of yesterday's proceedings.

O Brother, Where Art Thou? - Friday
My brother was here in old Grumlaw on Friday morning. My father made a non-vital repair to one of the side windows of The Last Angry Van. Before he left, the Mountain and I planned my arrival in A2; I was staying on for a few hours in GB to assist my father in putting new sway bars on Woody and the Impala. My brother said, "I'm going to spend the afternoon with the Conchshell, but we'll hang out this evening." Fine with me, I spend the early evening getting some vital and long-delayed work done for The Newsletter.

After successfully toiling in the Fishbowl for several hours, I stopped off at the Jimmy John's at Division and Hill to buy dinner and my breakfast for the next morning. I arrived at the Love Shack (the Mountain's lair) around 9:30. He was laying on his bed, watching E! with the Conchshell. I set down my backpack and sat down at his desk to eat my dinner (two Slim 1s) in peace. They both wanted to know why I got Slims, not regular Jimmy John's; that seemed very normal, because the first thing I always do with guests is question their cullinary choices. As always when I am around them, I try to mind my own business and keep my head down. The Mountain tried to engage me in conversation several times, but as soon as we'd begin, the Conchshell would call his attention back to the opera score she was examining.

As soon as I finished eating, I made a beeline for the door. They asked me where I was going. Their E! special on N*Sync having ended, they were now watching Wildboyz. I cited this as my reason, but my brother protested, saying that I loved Jackass. This is true, but that does not mean I enjoy either Wildboyz or Viva la Bam! The Conchshell protested that Steve-o no longer had a fish in his butt, but I was unswayed. Downstairs, I had noticed that the All-American Boy and Sam I Am, my brother's housemates, were watching the Tigers game. I told the Mountain and the Conchshell that I was going to join them, that I would rather watch baseball than stay in that room. Shocking as this was, it had the virtue of being true.

You all know how much I hate baseball and watching baseball on TV; if you do not, I will be happy to go on at greast and venomous length about my disdain for the "American pasttime." Suffice it to say that I loathe baseball, but at that moment, it was the far more appealing option. In my brother's room, listening to their mindless recitation of music school gossip and the Conchshell's classification of everything in the world as either "stupid" or "cute," I could feel myself growing dimmer, my formidable intelligence slowly but surely slipping away. My braincells were perishing at a calamitous rate, the truly sad part being that the surviving cells envied the dead, for their suffering was at an end. As IQ points ticked off like miles on an odometer*, I knew that something had to be done. Baseball, my old nemesis, was in that moment less mind rotting than listening to their banal banter. I bolted, and found unexpected refuge in a 17-3 rout of the Cleveland Indians by the Detroit Tigers.

To borrow Zooey Deschanel's priceless phrase from Big Trouble, I just had to get out, go somewhere else, go "where it's not so, I don't know, stupid."

After a little while, after the game was over and the boys split, the Mountain came downstairs and sat down. Soon, the Conchshell followed. In the course of the conversation, I made fun of his haircut, which is essentially a Beatle cut. In response, she called me a Nazi. Fortunately, they left for their party shortly thereafter. That morning, the Conchshell had had her jury, which is a big, stressful test in the music world. She wanted to attend this party to blow off steam, a typical college ritual. In her own words, she wanted to get "wizzasted." I remember at time (two years ago) when my brother hated people who drank expressly for the purpose of getting wasted. He despised, decried, and denounced those people; now, he is madly in love with one.

Whatever happened to the Bald Mountain? I try to fathom what deep unhappiness would make a man betray the ideals in which he so strongly believed, but without success. I am left wondering to where my beloved brother has gone, and who this imposter is, this stranger who wears his face and answers to his name.

*I know this makes no sense, since my IQ was dropping and odometers tick upward, but I just like that way this sounds.