The lesson to be learned from the above (other than that random cartoons of stick men are hilariously funny, but less so when your psycho flatmate does cheap copies of them in lectures and you’re obliged to laugh. Ahem.) is that taking action and preparing is essential.
Where, you ask, did one such as myself come by this nugget of eternal wisdom? EXAMS. There. I said it. Stop cringing.
That horrible time of year, now just past, when you experience more stress collectively than the rest of the year combined (excluding those times you were late with a crucial-for-DP assignment, or asked a total hottie out) Yeah, its pretty crap. You either stop eating entirely (big plus if you’re a girl, not so much if you’re a guy) or you begin eating like a pregnant hippo carrying sextuplets (bad all round), your hair falls out, your nails start splitting, your wardrobe goes from trendy and chic to baggy tracksuits and slippers – its just a manky state of affairs.
And then, there’s the fact that you actually have to study. It’s a much-discussed topic for me, but for all those people who STILL labour under the misconception that students go to university to study, you’re wrong. I’m sorry. It has been empirically proven that students are genetically incompatible with studying. It’s like putting a fish in middle of the Sahara Desert and asking it to not only survive, but make a success of itself, work hard, have no social life and leave said desert with a degree and several job prospects. Just not gonna happen. Fish chokes and dies. (Much like the current Italian football team)
Of course there are exceptions to every rule (like those freaky disgusting catfish they had on the news the other day that can actually survive out of water for a few hours and “crawl” across land to new rivers, etc.) and some students not only like studying, but thrive on it. They hate sunlight and loud music and much prefer the quiet, dimly lighted interior of a library to the beach or a club. They have few friends and less of a life and so, studying is their natural ally – an excuse as to why they never go to Tiger, or socialize at all, but sit in bed reading Sci-fi/varsity textbooks or playing DotA on a network all day. These catfish people, luckily, are rare, and seeing as they inhabit the library, you probably won’t have to deal with them much.
The name “student” is intrinsically misleading – it should really be “young person who escapes parental authority by leaving home for digs/res and likes to party and drink too much and get in trouble with the law for doing socially inappropriate things with friends/members of the opposite sex in public”. But that’s far too long to put on an application form under “job description”, so “student” it is.
That said, every year at a certain time, for every subject our parents have paid through their necks for us to (not) study, we students must be examined on the material we have so-called learned during the year. These exams, traumatic though they may be, are necessary to test our learning (read: force us to pick up and read a book for four or so collective weeks in a year) to make sure we are prepared for our eventual employment.
Many students employ different coping methods for exam stress. There are the comfort eaters, who go through roughly a truckload of biscuits and hot chocolate Monday to Friday, and gain at least 12 kilos over exam time. This is a decent litmus test if you’re wondering which of the perfect stick figures in your class has really good genes and which ones just pray to the toilet gods several times a day. (Hint: the ones who rapidly go back to normal after the exam time weight-gain fall into the latter category.)
A certain awesome friend of mine, known only as “Weird Steve” (not because he’s in any way strange or weird, that’s just his name) has a great coping mechanism: Nonchalance. (Rinse. Repeat.) Nothing fazes the guy! The biggest, meanest exams can come and go, but Weird Steve is chilled. He laughs in the face of International Law papers, while the rest of us gnaw on our stationery and look ill. The guy is my hero, but despite trying to be like him, I’m still a wreck before every single paper. Bummer.
Then you get the all-nighters – people who literally drink 15 cups of coffee a day, and do not sleep for 3-day periods while frantically catching up on work that they’ve missed during the semester, sitting hollow-eyed, surrounded by mounds of copied notes and loaned textbooks until the library closes at night, clutching empty, gnawed-on, Styrofoam cups.
Some people, like another mate of mine, get through it by looking good, which by proxy, makes them feel good and combats bad vibes and stress. Of course, it helps when you have the looks and wardrobe of a male model, like said friend, but it’s worth giving some thought to. Have tried it out once, my reasoning being that if I was going to fail, I might as well do it in style, and the paper actually went really well…. The secret to my mate’s success, perhaps?
Some people find the best way to cope is to vent your frustration and stress as naturally as possible. I WISH I could find the girl who walked out of my Psychopathology test venue and screamed her lungs out as soon as she had shut the door behind her, and shake her hand. Well done. My best girlfriend just goes to kickboxing classes (not that she needs any more lessons on how to kick ass!)
The fact of the matter is, whether you cope by some arcane means, or whether you, like me, become a caffeine addicted, socially isolated emotional and intellectual wreck for the 2-3 weeks of exams, its something that cannot be avoided. As the 80’s rock band Killer Pussy (they’re real, google it!) say in their song Teenage Enema Nurses in Bondage “It’s not a very pretty job, but someone’s gotta do it”. And as everyone (except catfish people) knows, cane and cream soda or a huge jug of beer never tastes sweeter than the night after you finish a killer set of exams. The Thursday after Constitutional Law June paper, and the third worst cane hangover in recorded history, is testament to that.
Another lesson learned.
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