We Who Are About To Die Salute You

Well, my last exam is minutes away. I have reached the point where I feel that if I study any more, I will go insane. I know I should study, but I just can't make myself. I have studied for this Early American History exam for twelve hours - I'm ready to call it quits.

I think I understand why the North and South went to war, and I can sympathize with the British soldiers who were exposed to such infamy during the Boston Massacre. I can name all of the Radical Republican Reformation guidelines that had to be met by the confederate states before they were allowed back into the union. I know what the significance of the Lincoln-Douglass debates is: they put Lincoln in the national spot light, informed the people of the ideology of the free-soil party (now the Republican party), and explained Lincoln's stand on slavery - he was against slavery, but he would preserve the union first and foremost, and that meant allowing slavery to exist untouched, but not allowing it to grow any further. I can put the themes of the course into perspective of historical events - unity vs. Disunity, conflict vs. Consensus, inclusion vs. Exclusion, dissent and protest, What does it mean to be an American, and who is an American.

The latter two questions I hope my professor does not ask because I cannot formulate a decent answer to the concept of what or who an American is. I don't even agree with the usage of the term "American" because the United States does not have a monopoly on it. Canada, Mexico, Belize, Panama, Brazil, Argentina- and all other countries in North, South, and Central America all have a claim on the term "American." So why can't the United States come up with a new term - United-Statesian - or something or other. Spanish has a term for and citizen of the United States - Los Estados Unidos, a person is said to be "Estadounidense," not "Americano." Anyway, I am only typing to dispel my nervous energy. The exam will consist of 10 multiple choice questions, 6 short answer questions, and 2 essays. I have parts I and II down, but the essays frighten, terrify me. There are so many options out there as to what Dr. Matthews could ask - and only a limited number of ways that I can BS my way into sounding like I know what I am talking about. And since the main format of the exam is essay, I have to recall everything from memory without the aid of multiple guess or matching. I hope it won't be so bad, but my gut tells me - be afraid, be very afraid. And so as I go to meet my doom, I leave with one last remark to the exam Gods, "We who are about to die salute you."