Bastard Exams
NOOO! More exams! My exams started nearly five weeks ago. OK, so I had a week off for half term, but that's still quite a while. What's more, I have until next Friday to go before they are all over. Naturally, study leave ended two days ago, so I'm now having to put up with exams as well as normal school.
Still - never thought I'd say this - it's a bit of a relief to return to school. Something about the orderly routine is, in a way, rather comforting, albeit very dull. Also nice to see my mates again, having been in less-than-glorious isolation for a good proportion of the last five weeks. So... I am now part of the elite (snigger) group of people that make up my school's eldest year. This has its advantages. My school maintains the quaint little prefect system. So, we have to do more work. Doesn't sound great, but, in my case, this amounts to two twenty minute stints organising lunch queues and generally putting the fear of me into the lower years. Ha ha ha, you little brats. Ahem. But here comes the good part. Prefects (the entirety of the upper sixth, ie us) can dish out lines and canteen cleaning duty to everyone else. Naturally, we have to have a good reason for it, but since the year nines never learn, that rarely presents a problem. Haven't dealt any out yet myself, but it comes in handy for ridding yourself of lower-school annoyances. Specifically, one good instance would be the year nine kid who keeps walking up to me, staring unblinkingly into my eyes and grinningly manically from a distance of about half a metre. If not dissuaded in whatever fashion from doing this, he will happily keep it up for a good five minutes. I think that he must have suffered mental trauma earlier in life, because there is definitely something wrong with him. Another related case is another year nine (don't know what it is about that year) who, for some reason best known to himself, insists on referring to me as "Zookeeper". I find that it's generally best to keep a safe distance from this one. Whilst the aforementioned kid has obviously just suffered a frontal lobotomy, the latter is - how can I put this? - more than a little unbalanced and quite possibly dangerous. I worry that one day he will attack me. Given our respective heights - I at about six foot two, he aspiring towards five foot - his teeth are positioned rather to close for comfort to places that I'd rather not have his teeth at.
But back to the earlier thoughts. First prefecty "duty" (hate the word "prefect", makes you sound like some ponce from Eton) was yesterday. Lunch queue supervision, 1:25 to 1:45. Since everyone had either eaten or decided to stuff it and go play football by this point, this wasn't particularly difficult, since there were at no time enough people coming for lunch to necessitate a queue. Therefore, I spent this time talking to a couple of mates and generally standing around doing a large amount of nothing.
Exams! trying to tell myself that they're almost over, but it's not easy. D1 maths tomorrow, which shouldn't present a problem, but next week is Pure maths and Mechanics, neither of which fill me with joy. I can just imagine the sad little creatures who wrote these exams - I mean, writing exam papers as a job? I mean, what on earth would possess any sane person to do that? Bastards. I hate them. Whilst I agree at a rational level that exams are for my benefit, and are a chance to show what I'm capable of, the deeper-down, more emotional core of my being loathes the very word. I mean, "Exams" "Ex" is latin for "out of", isn't it? I bet you that "am" means "the malevolent minds of hell-spawned little imps masquerading as education authoirity figures". Or maybe not. Think I've done OK, generally speaking, with a few setbacks - not noticing the last half a question in Physics was a good one.
I feel absolutely green with envy at my cats at the moment. They get to lounge around all day, eat, sleep, play, be stroked and most of all they don't have to do any exams at all. Wish I was a cat. Mind you, at least I've only got one more year of school. Oh wait. I've got uni next - good, but with harder exams - and then work. Oh dear. Work doesn't sound good. Not good at all. I think I will become a tramp.
Still - never thought I'd say this - it's a bit of a relief to return to school. Something about the orderly routine is, in a way, rather comforting, albeit very dull. Also nice to see my mates again, having been in less-than-glorious isolation for a good proportion of the last five weeks. So... I am now part of the elite (snigger) group of people that make up my school's eldest year. This has its advantages. My school maintains the quaint little prefect system. So, we have to do more work. Doesn't sound great, but, in my case, this amounts to two twenty minute stints organising lunch queues and generally putting the fear of me into the lower years. Ha ha ha, you little brats. Ahem. But here comes the good part. Prefects (the entirety of the upper sixth, ie us) can dish out lines and canteen cleaning duty to everyone else. Naturally, we have to have a good reason for it, but since the year nines never learn, that rarely presents a problem. Haven't dealt any out yet myself, but it comes in handy for ridding yourself of lower-school annoyances. Specifically, one good instance would be the year nine kid who keeps walking up to me, staring unblinkingly into my eyes and grinningly manically from a distance of about half a metre. If not dissuaded in whatever fashion from doing this, he will happily keep it up for a good five minutes. I think that he must have suffered mental trauma earlier in life, because there is definitely something wrong with him. Another related case is another year nine (don't know what it is about that year) who, for some reason best known to himself, insists on referring to me as "Zookeeper". I find that it's generally best to keep a safe distance from this one. Whilst the aforementioned kid has obviously just suffered a frontal lobotomy, the latter is - how can I put this? - more than a little unbalanced and quite possibly dangerous. I worry that one day he will attack me. Given our respective heights - I at about six foot two, he aspiring towards five foot - his teeth are positioned rather to close for comfort to places that I'd rather not have his teeth at.
But back to the earlier thoughts. First prefecty "duty" (hate the word "prefect", makes you sound like some ponce from Eton) was yesterday. Lunch queue supervision, 1:25 to 1:45. Since everyone had either eaten or decided to stuff it and go play football by this point, this wasn't particularly difficult, since there were at no time enough people coming for lunch to necessitate a queue. Therefore, I spent this time talking to a couple of mates and generally standing around doing a large amount of nothing.
Exams! trying to tell myself that they're almost over, but it's not easy. D1 maths tomorrow, which shouldn't present a problem, but next week is Pure maths and Mechanics, neither of which fill me with joy. I can just imagine the sad little creatures who wrote these exams - I mean, writing exam papers as a job? I mean, what on earth would possess any sane person to do that? Bastards. I hate them. Whilst I agree at a rational level that exams are for my benefit, and are a chance to show what I'm capable of, the deeper-down, more emotional core of my being loathes the very word. I mean, "Exams" "Ex" is latin for "out of", isn't it? I bet you that "am" means "the malevolent minds of hell-spawned little imps masquerading as education authoirity figures". Or maybe not. Think I've done OK, generally speaking, with a few setbacks - not noticing the last half a question in Physics was a good one.
I feel absolutely green with envy at my cats at the moment. They get to lounge around all day, eat, sleep, play, be stroked and most of all they don't have to do any exams at all. Wish I was a cat. Mind you, at least I've only got one more year of school. Oh wait. I've got uni next - good, but with harder exams - and then work. Oh dear. Work doesn't sound good. Not good at all. I think I will become a tramp.
posted by Canis Ex Machina at 1:46 pm
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