56 days left: double-trouble

Nice to see that the statistics entry got some real responses. Remember people, always keep your eyes open and always question what you are told.

I was up until 3-4am yesterday and the lack of sleep definitely took a toll on me. I was sleepy on the way to school and sleepy in school itself, and definitely was not able to focus on my Economics Paper 2 as much as I should have been able to. I also did not revise for it. I'm happy to say that I can still answer the questions. I found my 2007 JC1 promotional paper the other day and I had scrawled crazy things all over the question paper. I was completely stupefied then, and I can sort of remember that feeling a little bit. I dare say that I will pass this time, but of course it's nowhere near the standard that I expect of myself. As a result, I couldn't help feeling like I was making a mockery of the whole prelim process- because to me, this is about me pushing my own limits, and in that respect I am barely trying, let alone failing. Failing isn't so bad.

Literature was okay. My brain and my hand were both working slower than they normally would, probably as a result of the general fatigue that still hasn't quite lifted. As a result, I suffered from time management problems (which, on retrospect, also affected my economics paper). I had to do 3 essays, I started with Great Expectations (which is my weakest), then moved on to Othello, then to unseen poetry, which is usually my strongest. The unseen poems were ridiculously ambiguous, and I was floored. I'm pretty sure that everyone else was as well. I googled them and they're still pretty bland and ambiguous. I think I just had gotten into a panicky state of mind by then (because I had exceeded the time that I game myself).

Examinations require mental discipline, but they never really teach you how to acquire it in school. They just sort of expect you to get it yourself. I think most people assume that if you've gotten this far, you must already have it. But some of us never had any, and never learned how...