Yes, I'm neurotic. I know.
Things that become more annoying while revising for exams than they are normally:
Note: I wrote this about three days ago, and a few things have changed. See the end for what.
-needing to eat
-needing to go out and buy groceries
-needing to turn the groceries into edible meals
-the fact that I don't have six desks, one for every exam, and as a result I have six binders open, each with one or two piles of paper and books next to them, spread about my floor
-the fact that my bookshelves are five whole feet away from my desk
-trips to the Lake District for second year students* which take the SGT away from college and unable to keep us Finalists from having nervous breakdowns
-the armrests on my chair, which make it harder (minutely, but still) to get up from my desk and sit back down, say, when I want to go to one of the above-mentioned bookshelves, or make tea
-Other people studying for exams in the college library, when clearly, because their exams are a WEEK (or more) further away than mine, they have no right to take the nice desks when I feel like doing a practice exam
-any Windows error message, no matter how minor, even if it occurs when I'm actually being frivolous and checking e-mail
-having to do laundry
-Malory's eccentric, inconsistent, and completely random spelling choices, when they occur in sentences that I want to memorize in order to make a point about syntax in my essay
-Porters who, when I ask them to pidge a practice essay to the SGT for him to mark, instead deliver them to MY pigeonhole because (reasonably) I put my name on the essay
-the fact that the staircase's restroom is down one very, very cold flight of stairs from my room
-the lack of CCTV allowing all student rooms continuous views of the Porter's Lodge, so we can see when the SGT posts another sheet of tutorial slots for which we can sign up
-the lack of a Rube Goldberg-type device for automatically making and pouring me fresh cups of hot tea
-the still-cold weather which means that, even if I just want to run to the lodge to sign up for tutes, or to the library to grab a book, I still need to put on a jacket of some kind
*On one obvious level, this is poetic (ha ha ha) justice, since last year we went to the Lake District in 7th week, right before the Mods taken by the current group of second years. On another level, which is the one I prefer to contemplate right now, this is deeply unfair because Finals are far more deeply terrifying than Mods, and are actually important. And I didn't resent it in 1st year when the 2nd years went to the Lake District three weeks before Mods.
How One Little Change Makes Life Better
Well, it is now sunny. Skirt-and-bare-legs weather. Lovely. So obviously the last of the above is no longer relevant, what's more, some of the other things have converted themselves into pleasures. Pathetic pleasures, but still pleasures. Now going to buy groceries, for instance, is a pleasant break, because it means a walk in the sun! outside! where normal human beings (i.e., not finalists) are! An example of how pathetic life has become: I ran into a fellow finalist in the post room, and she said she was just far too sick of Balliol and so was going to take a break, be indulgent, and revise in the English Faculty Library for the afternoon. This is an indulgent break because to walk there and back is something like a 20 minute round trip journey (in the sun!) during which you can't study (whereas the college library is about 45 seconds). We agreed that, yes, we were all thinking this way these days, and, yes, it's pathetic, and YES, life will be much, much better in a few weeks.
Since eating remains necessary, today I went out for lunch with a couple of friends. We were at the Vault and Garden, one of the loveliest lunch spots in Oxford, with seating in the vault (winter) and garden (summer) of St Mary's on High Street. The garden is in Radcliffe Square. It's an impossibly idyllic location, the food is very good, and over our meal we started to plot Life After Exams. So at the moment I'm in a good mood. I'm about to sit down and do two more practice essays, so that'll end, but still.
For anyone who doesn't know the exact details, and might care (I guess that's an audience of zero), my exams begin on 15 May, and the last one ends at 12.30 GMT on Thursday 25 May.
Note: I wrote this about three days ago, and a few things have changed. See the end for what.
-needing to eat
-needing to go out and buy groceries
-needing to turn the groceries into edible meals
-the fact that I don't have six desks, one for every exam, and as a result I have six binders open, each with one or two piles of paper and books next to them, spread about my floor
-the fact that my bookshelves are five whole feet away from my desk
-trips to the Lake District for second year students* which take the SGT away from college and unable to keep us Finalists from having nervous breakdowns
-the armrests on my chair, which make it harder (minutely, but still) to get up from my desk and sit back down, say, when I want to go to one of the above-mentioned bookshelves, or make tea
-Other people studying for exams in the college library, when clearly, because their exams are a WEEK (or more) further away than mine, they have no right to take the nice desks when I feel like doing a practice exam
-any Windows error message, no matter how minor, even if it occurs when I'm actually being frivolous and checking e-mail
-having to do laundry
-Malory's eccentric, inconsistent, and completely random spelling choices, when they occur in sentences that I want to memorize in order to make a point about syntax in my essay
-Porters who, when I ask them to pidge a practice essay to the SGT for him to mark, instead deliver them to MY pigeonhole because (reasonably) I put my name on the essay
-the fact that the staircase's restroom is down one very, very cold flight of stairs from my room
-the lack of CCTV allowing all student rooms continuous views of the Porter's Lodge, so we can see when the SGT posts another sheet of tutorial slots for which we can sign up
-the lack of a Rube Goldberg-type device for automatically making and pouring me fresh cups of hot tea
-the still-cold weather which means that, even if I just want to run to the lodge to sign up for tutes, or to the library to grab a book, I still need to put on a jacket of some kind
*On one obvious level, this is poetic (ha ha ha) justice, since last year we went to the Lake District in 7th week, right before the Mods taken by the current group of second years. On another level, which is the one I prefer to contemplate right now, this is deeply unfair because Finals are far more deeply terrifying than Mods, and are actually important. And I didn't resent it in 1st year when the 2nd years went to the Lake District three weeks before Mods.
How One Little Change Makes Life Better
Well, it is now sunny. Skirt-and-bare-legs weather. Lovely. So obviously the last of the above is no longer relevant, what's more, some of the other things have converted themselves into pleasures. Pathetic pleasures, but still pleasures. Now going to buy groceries, for instance, is a pleasant break, because it means a walk in the sun! outside! where normal human beings (i.e., not finalists) are! An example of how pathetic life has become: I ran into a fellow finalist in the post room, and she said she was just far too sick of Balliol and so was going to take a break, be indulgent, and revise in the English Faculty Library for the afternoon. This is an indulgent break because to walk there and back is something like a 20 minute round trip journey (in the sun!) during which you can't study (whereas the college library is about 45 seconds). We agreed that, yes, we were all thinking this way these days, and, yes, it's pathetic, and YES, life will be much, much better in a few weeks.
Since eating remains necessary, today I went out for lunch with a couple of friends. We were at the Vault and Garden, one of the loveliest lunch spots in Oxford, with seating in the vault (winter) and garden (summer) of St Mary's on High Street. The garden is in Radcliffe Square. It's an impossibly idyllic location, the food is very good, and over our meal we started to plot Life After Exams. So at the moment I'm in a good mood. I'm about to sit down and do two more practice essays, so that'll end, but still.
For anyone who doesn't know the exact details, and might care (I guess that's an audience of zero), my exams begin on 15 May, and the last one ends at 12.30 GMT on Thursday 25 May.