the bane of my (and many others) life

1 more. That's what I’ve been waiting to say for these past few weeks. 1 more.

1 MORE EXAM LEFT!!!

If you hadn’t guessed, its exam time for me here in England, and I, along with thousands of others are going through the excruciating pain of thinking you’ve revised everything, only to find, when opening the paper, you feel like you don't know enough.

I had an exam yesterday which I’ve only just recovered from. It doesn’t bode well from the start when you don't actually like part of the subject you’re being examined on, but when you feel like you just can’t do it …needless to say, it was never going to be the strongest exam.

It was as if Despair was creeping closer and closer toward me as time edged its way around the clock and with 5 minutes to go, I just gave up altogether. And for the first time in my life, for the first time in what feels like millions of exams I’ve taken, I went home and cried. Buckets. And buckets.

This expectation of As and A*s is driving me round the bend. There’s a lot of talk of “You need amazing grades to get into Uni. so you can get a good job or no one will take you and you wont get anywhere” I guess I am affected by peoples expectations, and I'm scared if I don't live up to them- I don't want to let anyone down, even if it means doing something I don't necessarily want to do.

Anyway, it was a strange feeling, crying was, and looking back on it now it still feels strange, because Im one of those people who is normally completely optimistic about everything.

 I’m also convinced academic grades and exams aren’t everything in life and someone can be highly successful in anything with just determination and passion- my Dad being a prime example of this. His academic success wasnt sparkling with straight A*'s, but now hes some high up International Director, and travels to so many places! And he seems happy. Without an A* in sight.

So why was I so wound up?

I'm not sure. I mean, this exam covered half of the subject as a whole, and I LOVE the other half of the course, so I guess I just want to do well so I can carry on studying the parts of the course I love next year.  

Or maybe it’s something else? All I know is exams are unbelievably frustrating. Unaccountable amounts of time and effort going into to 1 and half hours. Pondering this last exam has made me think- do those single capital letters really make such a big impact on peoples lives?

Because they’re driving me to my wits end.

   Jx