The Case of the Missing Exam

Monday morning. 9:50AM. Maria arrives at the Department of Drama, Art, and Music on via Carbonesi for her ten o'clock exam. She immediately goes to the office of Prof. Bianconi, but finds the corridor dark and devoid of humans. She asks at the front desk as to its whereabouts, and receives a vague answer pointing her in the direction of the video room. Entering there, she questions the girl at the desk, who knows less than her, and comes to the conclusion that there is no exam happening near the video room.

10:10 AM. Maria returns to Prof. Bianconi's office, and finds it as before. (Just as a clarification, travelling around this building, for example, from the video room to the office, involves three flights of stairs and several hallways.) At the video room, the girl at the desk still knows nothing.

10:30 AM.Exiting, Maria sees Prof. Bianconi enter the building. She decides that it would be a good idea to go wait by his office now, to be the first one in line for the exam. Bad decision. She gives him five minutes, then ten, seeing as he isn't quite as young as he used to be, and returns once more to the front desk. Prof. Bianconi is there in the room, fussing about with papers. She is told once more to return to the room by the video room. The hallway is dark, there's no one else there, the door is locked, but she stays there faithfully... that is, until someone comes to tell her to wait out in the hallway. The hallway filled with forty students, all waiting calmly to have their exam with Bianconi. Forty students who had spent the last half hour or so watching her run around the building. Maria decides she is very good at making lasting first impressions.

11:00AM The exam starts. The students are split into three groups, one with Bianconi and the other two with two other professors. Maria is the last one in her group, but starts studying as she listens to all the other students give their oral exams.

12:00PM Maria is still waiting.

1:30PM The professor takes a ten-minute break that lasts half an hour. Then exams begin again. Maria is running out of things to study, is hungry, and has a headache from the girl in front of her with a bad cough.

3:00PM Maria is the next one to go. Then she is swept away by another professor up three flights of stairs and around several corners to give her exam with none other than the master himself, sitting in the most beautiful classroom she has ever seen. Marble pillars, angels painted on the ceiling, baby grand piano in the corner. She makes a few jokes, sings a few songs, babbles through a few questions.

3:30PM Maria gets her grade, and they tell her that they can't put it into computer until next month and that she should come back then.

Case solved.

Signed,

the Sengenblogger