Saturday 18 October 2014

Survivor!

After wasting a precious week of my life to tests, end-of-term assessments and puzzling questions that brought on a headache that not even a dose of Calpol to cure, like a candle, I'm burnt out. Gone are my fantastic levels of energy that are at their peak once a new week commences; an exhaustion unlike what I've ever experienced has taken hold. My heart throbs with envy at the thought of animals preparing for several months of utter peace - and relentless sleep - as winter approaches, a dream which I wish would come true at this moment in time. I'm tired, drained and more than slightly sleepy: as this morning has revealed to me, ten undisturbed hours of rest is exactly what I need. All the time. Yet what do I do if time does not offer me the privilege of spending my whole life in bed, especially when important work - and hours spent in a half-broken chair - must be completed?

Cry, my head whispers, its longing to unleash its drama queen stronger than ever. Or, if I dared to pay attention to my heart - which, unlike my head, has perhaps not been affected by slight levels of insanity - I should simply accept what I have to do, even if becoming a contestant on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! seems much more appealing.

And what I have had to do this week is the cause of my banging headache, drooping eyelids and potentially the biggest spot outbreak from which I've suffered in years. Seriously, I would consider making a claim against school if another spot - the colour of my anger, which reddens like a lit flare - appears on my face because all of this work is not fair. Before you even dare to answer back to me, let me get my view across first: it truly isn't!

Ah, this madness can be solely blamed on the tests that I have been obliged to sit this week at school which, according to my teachers, helps them to determine our abilities and which grades we might achieve when we finally take our GCSEs. Apart from Catering and Media, a test - or controlled assessment, as was the case in English - has been forced down my throat in every subject, including the ones that I hadn't been told about. Well, not even the most superstitious can expect teenagers to analyze their minds and find out what their intentions shall be - so why should school toss yet another exam question our way without letting us revise beforehand?

Tests are yet another part of the school system that I have no true desire to accept, but am somewhat obliged to acknowledge in order to reach the end goal: achieving success in my GCSEs. As I'm now nearing the end of Term One in the first year of GCSE work, more steps have been taken towards escaping my school and getting nearer to the sixth form of my dreams in town. Still, I have every right to complain about my dislikes and anger towards the unjust system whilst walking on the path towards The Dream to Beat All Dreams, don't I?

Along with the conformists, disruptive kids and teachers possessing little or no sense of controlling their classes (if they even bother to show up), tests have joined the highly coveted list of Overwhelming Negatives of School Life. If luck falls on my shoulders, maybe The Sunday Times might publish it in tomorrow's edition which, compared to the Richest Under 30s list, would make a pleasant change, wouldn't it?

Anyway, you would have to have fallen in the deepest sleep ever recorded to not get the gist of my argument: this week would preferably be tossed into a deep-as-a-Subway-sandwich hole and buried in the woods, never to emerge and haunt my life again. The sooner it is over, the happier I will be, a sensation of which will flood my veins with pure, hot relief. Getting further away from the negatives puts my mind at ease, though it significantly helps that the worst - providing enough obstacles to fill an Olympic stadium - is over.

As you might have expected, I become a nervous wreck if an assessment or a test is lurking in the shadows, awaiting its moment to pounce on me like a vicious animal. I get worried, j'ai les jetons and I panic bigtime - looming tests hang over me like a rainy cloud, making me unable to think of anything else nor temporarily escape my nerves.

However, I've discovered this week that anticipating a test is more nerve-wracking than actually sitting the test itself. Last week, my Maths teacher informed the class that we would be sitting a GCSE paper in seven days' time which, perhaps in his mind, was a means of kick-starting an ambition to revise. Yet it somewhat had an opposite effect on me: I did revise for the test and began to worship my workbook like a bible instead of treating it as a possession of the Devil, but nonetheless alarm bells rang through my head like an irritating ringtone.

Whether or not it is linked to my impatient nature, I might never know, but a panic as feverish as a sudden craving for chocolate chip cookies (preferably with a hazelnut filling and from Lidi, of course) seizes me if a clock begins to tick towards my impending doom. In order to ignore my tendency towards being impatient (whilst pulling off a highly annoying act), you would have to be pretty good at not analyzing anybody's personality - mine, on one hand, are outrageously obvious! In the past, I've always interpreted emotions related to tests as pure panic: from day one, I have never considered it any other way. But could my panic also be derived from impatience? Maybe so.

If possible, I will always choose to get something I seriously dislike - such as a cold in the lead-up to Christmas - over and out of the way as quickly as I can. Why? It will stick to my conscience like a pretty girl attached to Harry Styles' arm. Whenever it relates to somebody as important as a test, you would be hard-pressed to witness my forgetting about it until that moment comes. Although I may have a break from time to time, that test - or, in fact, anything at all - will still be floating around in the back of my mind, unready to be flushed out of my system.

Beneath the half-purple bags below my eyes, I'm still revelling in a buzz that was created by the greatest joy of all yesterday: all of my tests are over. In reference to a poem that I studied last term, The Raven, these tests are nevermore (à la Bart Simpson). Despite being lumbered with Shakespeare homework in my last lesson yesterday, I left school with an ecstatic smile gleaming from my lips, swimming in a sea of joy, elation and pre-weekend excitement. Once the waiting and, as my horrible Maths test proved, the doing are completed, you are free to toss one worry into a bin, uncaring about whether you will come eye-to-eye with the blasted thing ever again.

Plus, my reward - besides from the four packs of cookies that Mum picked up for me during Zumba yesterday evening - is about to handed over to me: half-term. Only four days of compulsory lessons will be attended next week before I'm off to prepare for Halloween, shopping and ten days of very (I say this very dramatically) late starts in the morning.

And afterwards? The prospect of Christmas on the horizon will sooth any blows or more pre-test worries, though I have my questions over whether thinking about crimpers - and what I need to add to my list - will boost my knowledge of Maths!


No comments:

Post a Comment