"It was my pleasure" - God to exam candidates

Following the end of another period of university exams and yet another conferral of bachelor's degrees to students, God, our Almighty and Heavenly Father, the Creator and Saviour, took time out of his busy schedule today to receive thanks and praise for letting so many students pass their exams and finally obtain their university qualifications.

"I'm glad they all remembered to thank me. You know, there are many naysayers who doubt me, who say that I never answer prayers and that I leave the world in a ceaseless cycle of misery and suffering while turning naught but a blind eye to the unending horror many hundreds face on a daily basis," said the 6000-year old Best-selling author in a press conference held in front of a burning bush earlier today, "but I think that all these Facebook statuses are proof enough that I'm here and that I do actually do stuff to help when it matters most. I really help out with the more important things in life."

Experts and university professors have since come forward to confirm the Divine Father's majesty and exam-beating power.

"As we all know, the makeup of a University course and the fact that it's broken down into three or four years to spread out the central concepts of the various fields of expertise into a structured and thematic development of knowledge was specifically crafted to be unbeatable without divine intervention," said the Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Town, Prax Marice. "Even our exams are physically impossible to pass. The questions are literally unanswerable, and even if they were, we employ teams of blind monkeys (which we didn't evolve from) to scribble on the answer sheets and make them illegible and unmarkable."

That so many students passed, say professors and course coordinators, is testament to the unknowable and incomparable magnitude of the Holy Trinity's awesome potency.

"I spend hours a week preparing lectures filled with lies and red herrings that are aimed at misleading our students," said Journalism and Media Studies lecturer Cato Stropteros. "Then, to make matters worse, I routinely set tests, quizzes, essays and semesterly evaluations to ensure that each term's horrendous disfigurement of the truth is being fully absorbed. On top of this, each semester has an extensive collection of hundred-page-long Manifestos filled with falsehoods and slander that are branded ‘required reading’. I don't know how God undoes all my hours of hard work, but it gets me every year."

He added that many students had received God's blessings despite having spent hours in the Temple of Lies, known by many Satanists as "The 24-hour Section" or "The Library".

"Some students passed even though they spent sometimes whole nights in these Bible-denying hate-houses," said Stropteros. "Hell, half of them even preferred a diet of caffeine and energy drinks over holy water, wafers and unleaven bread. It just shows you the extent of God's generosity."

And despite mounting criticism that God had done nothing to prevent war and death in Syria, Ebola, or the abhorrent and not-yet-fully-declassified report into the State-sanctioned human rights violations and atrocious allegations of torture and murder by the CIA, and that even Satanists, atheists, Muslims, and Jews had also passed their exams, many have remained thankful, with Universities across the world introducing sweeping changes to their fundamental structure.

"Clearly, the entire concept of a University is utterly pointless and meaningless, so we're just going to change the university year to be just a two-week period of exams," said Marice. "This way, no one will have to sacrifice thousands of rands and hundreds of hours all in the name of becoming unemployed and overqualified."

At the time of going to press, a thousand other deities had not responded to requests for commentary, leading us to assume that they obviously don't exist.

Pic: wikimedia commons, public domain.

Third-year student is “totally screwed”

Friends, family and university peers of third-year BCom student Jake Henderson told reporters at Muse and Abuse yesterday that he is “totally screwed” for the upcoming exams.

According to those he loves most and the girl whose notes he begs for every Tuesday because he didn’t’ go to the Monday lecture, the 21-year-old Accounting and Theory of Finance major, who started studying for his June exams last night, is not prepared at all.

“It would be funny, if it wasn’t so desperately sad,” said Intha Frendzhone, without whose notes half of the Accounts 3 class would be homeless and DPless.

Henderson, however, has denied these allegations.

“Bru, like, I’ve been busy, okay? That fist isn’t going to pump itself in Friar’s, and you know how they say ‘all work and no play makes Jake a dull boy’,” he said. “Now can you get that microphone out of my face? I’ve got books that need reading.”

Early indications have suggested that Jake has started the long journey of catching up on twenty readings – a feat that is akin to the government promising textbooks to schoolkids: it’s a nice thought, and he’s supposed to be able to do it in time, but it’s not going to happen.

Study experts agree.

“He’ll probably work all night, fueling his study-determined state with endless cans of Redbull and black market Ritalin,” said study expert and misguidance analyst Hugh Ahreffed.

Ahreffed went on to say that this 16-hour marathon might help him in terms of confidence only. “He’ll go into the exam feeling confident and prepared, if a little tired,” he said. However, this would be short-lived.

“His first mistake will be asking friends and colleagues how much they studied and if they’re ready. They’ll give a worried smile, and then talk in depth about how they didn’t understand the first three modules, but are really hoping that McHenderson, 1981, Jeffries, 1993, and Thompson, 2002, appear in the exam.”

This specificity, Ahreffed said, will set up a chain reaction of doubt. “He’ll smile, but inside he’ll be like, ‘who the fuck is Jeff… Jefferson?’”.

This will only worsen as time goes on.

“His heart rate will probably increase, and his palms will go sweaty, and he’ll start to suspect he should have started studying three weeks ago. There will be a resurgence of hope when the papers are handed out and Father Time tells them that they if they don’t have ID, they will attempt to identify them via the university facebook, but this will fade when they announce 10 minutes reading time,” said Ahreffed.

The exam, to anyone watching, would be brutal.

“He’ll write some half-hearted stuff, bullshit his way through essay two, fall asleep during essay three, wake up and panic, and then finally throw down his pen in frustration, and then sit there in a kind of braindead trance,” he said.

According to Ahreffed, this is where it will become most interesting.

“He’ll go through motions of depression, and then, as the end of the session approaches, will find it sickeningly funny. Upon walking out Barrat, he’ll even laugh about it, saying the exam ‘raped’ him. As if rape or failure is the highest form of comedy.”

Other friends, however, have suggested that Jake is not as screwed as the media is making him out to be.

“He’ll be fine,' said equally screwed Dhoz Noahwerk. "That oke can talk SHIT, and there’s always a chance that he’ll get a script marker who hates his life and just wants it all to be over and gives J-boy a vacillator’s mark.”

Jesus, to whom Jake has been praying every night, could not be reached for comment.