1.30 Judgement Day

Monday morning. Finals. Judgement Day, some of her classmates have been calling it. It certainly fits.

Naomi hurriedly eats her (extremely sugary) breakfast. With her mother in and out of concerts and her studying for exams this weekend, neither of them had the time to do grocery shopping. Naomi purchased a key-lime pie in a hurried daze the day before, only realizing an hour before the supermarket closed that there wasn't any food at home. 

She glances at the time- 10:00- and rushes to put the dirty plates of last night's and this morning's key-lime pie away so she can get changed. 

The dishwasher makes a sound similar to a groan before spewing smoke and water. 

"Why are you doing this to me!?" she squeals, a terrifying smile on her face, to either the dishwasher or the Watcher. Right now both of them are playing a sick joke on her. 

She doesn't have time to deal with it properly. When the bus pulls up, the puddle is mopped up but the dishwasher still sparking. She sends her mother a text promising to fix the machine once her exam is finished before hopping onto the bus. 

"Exam week, huh?" the bus driver remarks, seeing classic signs of little sleep and stress oozing out of Naomo's every pore. 

"Yeah," Naomi smiles tiredly, "At least it only lasts a week." 

"And then you're done with school!" 

Her smile fades slightly, "Yeah. Then high school will be over..." 

But what will be starting? Naomi still doesn't know. 

Right now her exam starts soon. All the teens are gathered outside, reviewing at the last minute, joking with their friends that "they're so screwed" and "didn't even read the summary of the summaries" or that, "You say that but you always get an A!" 

She doesn't engage in any of it. She leaves Brianne alone, who's reading her biology notes in a last-minute effort to cram in information, and only nods to Calvin, who seems just as tired and twice as impatient to get this over with as she is. 

Can we just start already? Naomi mentally pleads with the school clock. Because they only have one exam a day, the graduating high schoolers are only permitted inside the building at 11 instead of their usual school start time of 9. Naomi's grateful for the extra sleep and revision time, but right now she wants to be in front of that exam paper before her memorised facts and arguments slip away from her sleep-deprived brain. 

Finally, Mr. Benson comes out of the building with a megaphone. 

"12th grade Biology students, please file in this way..." 

She takes a deep breath. She's as ready as she'll ever be... 

...which is what Sage is also telling herself. Today marks another concert, but she can feel that she's on the verge of a promotion. If she can get their last concert in this series preformed without a hitch, she knows she'll be on the fast track to a permanent spot on the orchestra. Then she'll get to travel with them on their gigs in neighboring cities! 

She can do this. It's what she's worked for her entire life. 

The concert goes well. When Ms. Lin congratulated her and talked about Sage's "bright future" with the orchestra, she knows it's a done deal. 

She's officially, solidly, a part of the Riverview Orchestra now. 

Her elation carries her through repairing the dishwasher. Naomi's promise to fix it is casually forgotten; she has her final exams! It's important that her daughter study, after all. 

Or work, as it happens. Shifts stop for no event, not even her finals. Naomi's boss was surprised when she turned up for work with all the part-time teenaged workers around town taking time off for their exams. But he didn't say anything. If she wants to work, well, he's not going to stop her. 

Work is what serves as the foundation of this family, after all. It brought Sage here and by proxy, brought Naomi here. Into existence. To her current job. And...beyond. 

Sage hasn't put down her bass since fixing the dishwasher hours ago. Now that she has finally been given her own bass she can't stop playing it. She's always been good at the bass but literal years without regular practice have made her rusty. 

Can't have that. 

Sage cannot afford distractions. 

And Naomi needs her rest, after all. 

She has finals. 

She has finals. 

Finals. 

She has finals. 

FINALS. 

She brushes her teeth vigorously, once, twice, three times. 

It's not uncommon for her to check if her teeth are really clean. Bad breath makes a bad impression, after all. 

But this particular morning it's not her breath that she's worried about, it's her hands. She got ink all over them during her biology test! And no matter how hard she scrubs... 

It feels like the ink won't go away. 

The soap runs out. She stares blankly at the sink, wondering what to do now. 

She has an afternoon exam, leaving her plenty of time to revise. 

But she can't. Her geometry notes look like hieroglyphics to her, her history summary mocks her with names of treaties she can't remember the signatories and ratification dates of, she feels like she doesn't know how to study how to interpret literature... 

So she takes a much needed break. The laundry needs to be done anyways. 

She has finals. 

She calls Michelle. 

"Hey, I was wondering if you had time to go over history together..." 

But Michelle is busy studying for their geometry final, the one that very afternoon.

She calls Brianne. 

"If I look at one more fucking special triangle, I'll end up burning my textbooks," Brianne snaps angrily. Geometry was never her favourite subject. 

Three hours before the exam. Naomi consults her geometry text book. 

Two hours. She closes the text book. 

She's not making much headway. She dials another number. 

One and a half hours. Calvin shows up to study. Naomi tries to hug him in greeting, relieved that someone else is there. 

"Whoa, whoa, just friends, remember?" 

Naomi looks down, embarrassed and confused, "I wasn't...I hug my friends too, Calvin." 

Calvin looks down, now embarrassed himself. "Oh well, uh... I don't do hugs."

"I see. I'm sorry, I should've thought about-," 

"Yeah, yeah whatever. Look, this is awkward now and I don't want to confuse myself before the test. Sorry." 

Without another word, he takes off towards the school. One hour to go. 

They have finals. 

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AN: FINALS 

The most stressful, terrible wonderful period of any school year! 

You see people react in many different ways to the stress of exams. Some clean obsessively to procrastinate, or keep cooking, or talk to their friends, use the internet, etc. Naomi seems to be under the cleaning category, I'd say Calvin is the internet/going out with friends type (so is Brianne, though I would say she cares about her grades more than Calvin does. She probably also calms her friends down before the test or gives them angry pep talks). 

I know that sims don't have final exams. And I probably won't bring them up in future generations. But Naomi's teen days were super repetitive and I wasn't sure what to write to shake it up a bit. Sooo finals! 

I also finally caved and gave Calvin a makeover and bought Sage some instruments other than the guitar. She was playing the drums a few chapters ago, though she mainly plays the bass and guitar around the house. 

"Michelle" is also probably Jon Lesson's daughter, but Naomi's generation was so long ago in my save file that I can't find the Lesson family tree to confirm. I might have to get his grave out, wait for his ghost, and use some NRaas magic to find out. He never married so his last name wasn't passed down to any of his kids. I also could not remember her actual name (I think it started with an S). My current save is deep into generation 4 territory so she's probably not around anymore for me to check either.