The Ego Episodes

Wednesday, Apr. 20, 2005

Exam Blues

When I encourage myself by saying things like, you can do this, you’re not going to fail, I go, oops, I did not just say that. No thought of failure allowed. DO NOT THINK ABOUT F-- You’re going to get an A. You deserve an A. There you go. Positive thinking.

Hi, how are you? Good? Well, I’m good, too. I sorta foiled my chances of acing a paper because I had an eraser on hand and I wrote everything in pencil. I found erasing very fun in the course of 2.5 hours of completing an exam paper that I thought, hmm, I’ll just erase my answers that I obtained through painstaking calculations because erasing is so easy and fun. As a result, I totally wasted 8 MARKS.

But I’m good. You know, just a little bit shaken by this stupidity and oh my, I AM JUST SO STUPID! No, really! I’ve been taking exams for years and this is, by far, the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. No, I don’t have obsessive-compulsive behavior, I think. The thing was, at first I thought it was only worth 4 marks. A tiny voice told me that hey, it’s easy but not that easy. How come it’s only 4 marks? But did I listen to this voice? No. I pressed the numbers in my calculator and solved the sub-question even though I thought it was only 4 marks. I had a feeling I’m running out of time so I didn’t continue answering the other time-consuming subquestions. Instead, I tried to finish question no. 1 which I started but skipped because I was stuck and only went back to it after I have succeeded answering three questions. When the time was up, I got three questions in full, while question no. 1 was half-solved and I got 4 marks for the other question (Each question carries 25 marks.). Now, I know they would only count my answers for four questions. Since I already got question no.1 half-solved (or so I thought), I will just erase my answers for the 4-mark question. So at the last possible moment (the time was up, pen was already down), something in me flipped and I ERASED MY ANSWERS to the 4-mark question. Then, after re-browsing, I realized that I was half-blind, because the 4-mark question? Not worth 4 marks! But 8! And the 4-mark question was actually asking about something so simple you don’t need to calculate anything, so I could’ve answered that as well, in less than 2 minutes! Argh! ARRRRGGGHH!!!

So yeah, if you are confused by that story, it’s alright. I shouldn’t really complain because I know I’m not going to fail or anything. It’s just that I want an A. That’s what I want. And I was close to achieving that. The point is, I could’ve done better, had I been more relaxed. I have no idea what’s going on but I was just nervous this morning. Yesterday, the thought that this is my last semester and thus FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION/I CANNOT FAIL hit me and triggered a mild panic attack. I did my job. I studied for days for each subject (especially for this one) and yet, somehow, I’m just nervous about the outcome. When I encourage myself by saying things like, you can do this, you’re not going to fail, I go, oops, I did not just say that. No thought of failure allowed. DO NOT THINK ABOUT F-- You’re going to get an A. You deserve an A. There you go. Positive thinking.

And the thing is, I love the subject. It’s the subject I’m most confident in, so if I don’t do well in that, well then, what do I get for the other 3 papers in which I’m not much of a fan?

Moral lesson: Write in ink. Pray that people did worse than you. Move on.

I want to move on already. I still have 3 papers left but I can’t help but feel dumb/hate myself/be crabby about the whole thing. I had another entry in mind that occurred to me yesterday and I was so excited to write about, but I had to put it off because I had to prepare for my paper this morning. But instead of that entry, you get this. I just had to whine. (Note to future self reading this: How are you doing with Whine Management?) I might post again in a few hours. Wait for Ms. Moody to get her ice cream.

{ joycie at 4:05 p.m.}