I would have fallen asleep, but the professor seemed to be yelling at each student who asked a question, even the students who were sitting on the floor in front. It wasn’t a mean sort of yelling, just yelling. But it was scary enough to not want to raise my hand. The review was packed. The aisles were filled before the professor even arrived and more students showed up every hour. Despite the yelling, this was a determined professor. He moved from one topic to the next without hesitation and it seemed like noting could interrupt his passion of stats ‘til the second coming. But something did.

I was just sitting there, taking notes and trying to understand the proper usage of the Control Limit Theorem when it happened. It started with a slight tickle in my nose, there was the pause to set down my pen, then the common long breath in as I prepped to brace myself.

I sneezed.

The professor automatically responded with the courtesy “Bless you,” but then looked away from the projector screen to see where the sound had come from. I was sitting in the second row and it was impossible to miss his dumbfounded look. Instead of picking up his place in the lecture, he asked, “Was that a sneeze?” I was too confused to answer verbally so I just nodded hoping that the attention towards me ended there. But he continued to use his booming voice that was needlessly amplified by a lapel microphone to ask if that seriously was a sneeze. Then he asked the other 300 people in the review session if they heard it and he went on to tell us that he was a “let it all go” sort of sneezer.

I don’t know if I was just embarrassed that a lecture hall had suddenly relocated its point of interest from sample sizes and means to my sneeze, or if I was just stressing about taking the exam. But either way, I didn’t hear much of what the professor said to me.

When the review ended my friends said they were proud to have been able to sit next to the “weird sneeze” girl and random students made comments as we left the building.

I didn’t fail the exam the next morning and I learned to never again sneeze in a review session. But it’s nice to know that my sneeze can put up a fight against statistics, one of the greatest inventions of the 17^th century.