Nonetheless, I am on a quest to deconstruct the academic institution that is the blue book and find out why those books are blue. Occasionally I care about the grade penciled in on the inside cover, but the sight of a stack of blue examination books resting beside a podium has never struck deep chords of fear or inspired more than test-day jitters.

In the grand scheme of my academic career, blue books haven’t mattered much. Why are blue books so small? Why did they have to use wide-rule paper? Why are they BLUE? When I’m faced with exam questions like “How was ’s work influenced by the idea of modernity?” and eight blank pages of blue book waiting to be filled with my scribbling, my mind usually travels to the slightly more trivial. This wasn’t supposed to be a difficult assignment, but my brain was having trouble focusing. Unfortunately, the anxious knot that usually takes up residence in my stomach a few minutes after a smug TA hands me an examination book wasn’t materializing as a motivator. I had hoped the nervous adrenaline that keeps my fingers moving during three-hour exams would inspire my thoughts to coalesce faster than they normally do in front of a computer screen. I tried to write my first draft of this column in an actual blue book.

World litature blue bobok final