Saturday, September 12, 2015

The Truthist Takes the ACT




Shane took the ACT today.
 Anyone who knows Shane, knows that he does not look on the bright side. He is one to assume the worst case scenario in any given situation. We've discussed this here before and through the years I have come to appreciate this outlook on life. Things are usually not worse than Shane thought they would be because he expects that things will be terrible, horrible, no good, and very bad--in spite of his Pollyanna Mother's cheerful pep talks to the contrary.

 Last night before we had family scripture and prayer, Shane and I ran through the checklist of what to bring and got everything gathered and ready. Then we discussed our timeline for getting him there early and how things would go. The past few weeks we have had ongoing chats about the experiences with the ACT of his seven older siblings and he has had input from friends as well as online advice. 

So, it looked like he was as ready as he could be.

 Well, there was one thing we did not anticipate. 
When I picked him up, he jumped in the car and I asked him how it went. He said "Do you have any kleenex in here?"

I looked over at him and saw the dried blood around his nose.
A bloody nose! 

His  nose started bleeding right as they handed out the science section. It was the last section of the test. He said he felt the bleeding start so he put his hand up to his nose to check. Sure enough, the floodgates had opened and he leaned his head back figuring it was better to let it run down his throat than out on the test. 
But he did need to look down at the test eventually, and also write in his answers.
I give him full credit here for problem solving: he used his hands and his jeans to take care of the copious amounts of blood surging out of his nose. His multi-tasking was admirable. He had to read and wipe and read and wipe...and then write and begin again. 

What other options were there? 
He realized that if he raised his hand and asked for a tissue, it would turn into a full on HAZMAT crisis. The protocol for bloody noses is, as you can imagine, to treat it like there could be a serious blood-borne disease spilling out of a student's nose. Shane knows because he's been having bloody noses at inopportune times throughout his young life.
He didn't want to get dragged out of the room and have to take the whole test over at a later date. There was a close call when the proctor walked by and he had blood on his finger. He quickly stuck it in his mouth. 
 Don't worry, he just had a physical and his blood is safe.

We had a good laugh on the way home--that was certainly a worst-case scenario he didn't anticipate! 
I wondered out loud if any blood got on the test or his answer sheet. That could raise some concerns. We concluded that the ACT took everything he had and he had the bloody hands and pants to prove it. 

The blood-stained jeans




1 comment:

Melanie said...

Poor Shane! It was even worse than he could imagine. Evan took the ACT today too (hopefully for the last time) and I told him this story when he got home. He gets nosebleeds often and he was so glad that has never happened to him. He said he might have just given up if it was a bad nosebleed. We were both impressed that Shane persevered!

Happy Birthday Scott!

 It has been awhile since I updated this little family scrapbook on the internet. I like to pop over here from time to time and look at our ...