Some Revolutionary

Some people go to university to find themselves. I went to the Technion – Israel’s premier technical institute and a world-renowned factory for broken spirits - to lose my hair, my social battery and my fundamental belief in the fundamental laws of physics. If GPA actually stood for ‘Gravely Perplexed Adult’, I would have been a straight A-student. Instead, I spent four years staring at exam papers that looked less like mathematics and more like ancient Chinese curses, written by a very angry person. In that place, scraping a sixty wasn’t a failure; it was a miracle – rare, precious and usually involving some form of divine intervention.

One day, right in the thick of finals week and fresh off another soul-crushing exam, a few of us were slumped at the cafeteria. We all had that gray and defeated look, completely wiped. As per our usual ritual of collective wallowing, we started comparing notes on our suffering. Everyone took turns explaining exactly how bad they had bombed it – I, for one, was convinced I’d score a negative ten, simply because they’d surely deduct points for sheer stupidity. That was when, out of pure desperation, I heard myself say: “Okay, so what are we doing about it?”

“What do you mean, ‘what are we doing’?” someone asked. “We prep for round two, obviously. That, and pray to the gods of the bell curve.”

“Haven’t you had enough?” I shot back. “Are we just gluttons for punishment? Like a punching bag that just hangs there and takes it without ever swinging back? You really want to just sit here and wait for the next round of exams to finish us off?”

“Of course we’ve had enough,” someone added. “But what’s your brilliant idea? You gonna implode in the middle of the department and hope the debris hits the dean?”

“Noted,” I muttered, and we all went back to wallowing and let it drop.

Once we scattered, I made my way toward the dorms, when I heard footsteps racing behind me. I turned around and saw Eli catching up to me at a dead sprint.

“Listen,” he panted, trying to catch his breath. “I thought about what you had said back there. You’re right – we can’t just sit around. We have to do something.”

“Yeah, sure, we have to. But I don’t have a clue what. Besides, I’ve got another exam to fail tomorrow, so give me a break.”

“No, no,” he insisted, giving me another nudge. “Seriously, I think I’ve actually got an idea.”

“Fine, hit me. What’s this ‘grand plan’ of yours?”

“So here’s the plan – we’re writing a manifesto!” Eli said, his eyes practically glowing with a manic intensity. “A declaration, an ad, call it whatever you want. We’re going to put everything down on paper: every single thing we actually think about these professors and their god-awful exams. And then, we’re going to plaster it over every bulletin board at the Technion!”

He didn’t stop there. He was pacing now, gesturing wildly as if he’d just split the atom. “It’s going to be glorious! We’ll call them out on everything – the impossible curves, the trick questions, the absolute cold-bloodedness of it all. We’re going to strip away the prestige, and show the world the raw, ugly truth. By tomorrow morning, the entirely carefully crafted façade will crumble! They won’t know what hit them.”

I looked at him. He was vibrating with excitement, convinced he was about to spark a revolution. I, on the other hand, was just wondering if the printer in the library had ink, or if that was also part of the grand conspiracy to destroy us.

But I really wasn’t in the mood for studying for my exam. And I really didn’t want to trudge up that bloody steep ascent up to my room. So I decided to give it a shot.

“Alright, man, let’s do it,” I told Eli.

“Super, man!” he exclaimed, and we both headed to the lab, to make it happen.

We wrote with a kind of feverish intensity, pouring all our frustration into every line. The words came out sharper than we expected, skirting the edge of vulgarity as we tore into the professors with a vocabulary we didn’t even know we had.

The cursor blinked on the screen. Eli looked at me, eyes burning with revolutionary zeal.

“You ready?” he asked.

“More ready than I’ll ever be for that physics exam,” I said, and hit ‘Print’.

We watched, our breaths held, as the aged printer, an antique relic of a bygone technological age, groaned to life. It didn’t just print - it roared, rattling the desks as it coughed out our manifesto, page after page of smudged, barely readable rebellion.

It was glorious.

“Okay,” I said, looking at the stack of papers. “Now we go and plaster them.”

“Now?!” Eli looked at me as if I’d just suggested we walk into the Dean’s office naked. “It’s the middle of the day! What’s the matter with you? We have to do it at night.”

“Right. Of course. We’ll plaster them at night,” I agreed.

“Small detail,” he said, clearing his throat. “I live off-campus, so getting back here later is… tricky. But you live right here in the dorm, so...”

“Hey, wait, you piece of….”

“Thanks, gotta catch my bus!” Eli shouted, already backing away. “You’re the best!” and then he was gone.

As evening crept in, my stomach twisted. A hundred times I decided not to do it, and a hundred and one times I decided I would.

At nine thirty, I put on a long coat, scarf and wool hat. I stuffed the papers under my coat and grabbed some tape and a pair of scissors, and headed out.

I had a plan – I would go to the free movie they were showing in the Student Union. I wanted to throw off anyone who might be following me. I sat there in the darkened hall; I was on pins and needles. I couldn’t focus on the screen for a second. My mind was already out there in the cold, dark corridors. I looked at my watch, and when it showed ten-thirty, I slipped out of the hall like a shadow. The Technion was quiet and cool in the winter night; there wasn’t a soul around.

I entered the department building, which was lit by a dull, flickering light. I walked silently, creeping through the corridors, and finally arrived at the first bulletin board. I hastily pulled out a sheet, slapped it onto the board, and glanced swiftly left and right. There was no one there. Empty. Great, I thought. One down, fifty to go. Let’s go on to the next one.

And so it went – I moved from one bulletin board to the next, sneaking through the dead of the night, spreading my dangerously illicit manifesto everywhere.

After I’d finished the last one, I wiped the sweat from my forehead, and strode back to my room, my heart feeling lighter than it had all week.

I woke up the next morning and rushed down to the department. I walked right into the middle of a minor uproar. Everyone - literally everyone - was buzzing about the pamphlets that had appeared overnight all over the Technion. As I walked through the corridors, I caught fragments of conversations. Some students praised the “unknown heroes” behind such a heroic act, while others claimed the move would only backfire once the professors sought their revenge. The TA’s and professors moved through the halls looking flustered and exposed, as if the raw truth had finally been laid bare.

I felt like one of those French Resistance warriors in WWII, or a sleeper agent moving through the crowd – unrecognized, unnoticed, the silent hero of the hour.

***

I failed that exam. I actually managed to score a negative number, which I was fairly certain was some kind of world student record. I met Eli near the bulletin board where the grades were posted. I could still see the torn remains of our heroic act clinging to the wood.

“I’m officially a world-record holder,” I told him. Then, leaning in with a conspiratorial look, I lowered my voice to a whisper. “So… when does the rebellion officially start?”

“Huh?” he said distracted. “Oh, that. Yeah, I got sixty. I’m done, bye!”

And off he went.

Some revolutionary.

Some damn revolution.