Saturday, March 12, 2011

And I'm back! After exams...

Yes, I really am *gasp*. Now that the finals are over. Seriously, to learn the value of normal life, live a day through the exams.

And the funny thing is, now I have a strong urge to study. Probably because it doesn't matter any more :D

12th starting early (no one warned us about this), the postponed school trip to Udaipur being decided all in a hurry, tuitions starting day after tomorrow (cruelty I think) and many more unknowns. The future sounds...exciting. Let's hope it is while we check out the recent past: 5 papers, spread out over 15 days.

In fact, the common exam story ran something like this for most of us:

a) Complaining about how much time had been given to prepare; either it was too much or it was too little

b) Joking about every random thing just to avoid studying

c) Trying to trick ourselves into studying with motivation, threats, incentives or even "external forces"

d) Depending on which method worked, grudgingly sitting down at a desk, bed, sofa or cushion with a book.

e) Putting all available resources of student will power into not drifting off into sleep or other, more entertaining things (which would include just about anything else at the moment)

f) Arriving at the exam hall on the morning feeling unprepared (hats off to the ones who didn't feel such) and now exerting all student willpower not to think about how badly we're going to flunk. With fear, prayers and unfounded optimism we enter the exam hall.

g) And here we transform. Most students go from being happy, carefree people to furious writing machines. Students become professional exam writers under the actual influence of the exam room and invigilator. The otherwise-very-normal desks and chairs themselves change in our eyes. Once again, the time allotted is usually either too much or too little. And this time is punctuated with random interruptions from invigilation teacher replacements, arrival of subject teachers to answer doubts, student-teacher battles over the time left, random requests for pens and paraphernalia etc.(it could be anything really)

h) Out of the examination room, it's a new feeling. It could be euphoria at that "dumb easy paper" or irritation at the "dumb difficult paper". Students, divided by class, are united by subject to critically examine every aspect of their paper. And this big group, resigned, happy, tired or however they're feeling, head home to prepare for the next one.

As for me, exams were OK I guess. Not my best work, but hey, it's not 12th yet. Besides, I was suddenly bored of studying, so I didn't revise before as well as I should have. So, not excusing myself here, but just hoping it didn't go too badly. Papers are out on the 18th and results on the 22nd.

Papers were good otherwise, especially Economics today which seemed like a gift. No bets on how well I've done, but it was fun seeing the questions. Other papers were fine and I'm sure that despite their dark predictions, most children will pass.

I neglected a lot though: living and learning about life rather than just focusing on a part of it, actually relaxing instead of being lazy, reading, writing, writing blog posts and me

Will report my ongoing successes on these and any new stories. In the meantime, thanks again for being the most awesome readers ever!



Forget development experiences of China and conic sections, they're only a PART  of life.


Though I admit, life does seem to become a particular subject around exam time ;)


Best of luck to anyone having exams in the near future :)




Image from: http://msumusichistory.pbworks.com/f/1267284271/1267284271/1267284271/1267284271/1267284271/image%20of%20book%20for%20grad%20exams.jpg

3 comments:

Sharmada Nagarajan said...

wow.....gud for u....one exam left....english on 17th....nd we hav skool on 18th....no idea why!!!! and yeah...i come out of the exam hall exclaiming "DUMB"
no easy or difficult...!!!!
anyway....we're gonna leave 11th grade behind and move to 12th....last yr in skool for us.....so let's hope it's fun!!!

Charu said...

@Vivarjitha: Hope your exams went well! We'll be seeing our papers tomorrow too.
Haha, students sure unite in the face of exams ;)
And yes, we still have to face the LAST year of school. Best of luck to us!

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Good Luck with your writing!