Welcome to the Exam Season

You can tell it's examtime and people are stressed because pretty much everyone you talk to has the grace, manners and general pleasantness of a broody gorilla who you just pushed in front of in the checkout queue at a supermarket with a basket containing 100 items, none of which have the bar codes on them and must be searched around the store for the prices.

A long metaphor, but you get the point.

Thoughts

I've tried three times to put down what I think onto the metaphorical paper that is here, and no time has been satisfactory. So I will be brief and attempt in doing so to avoid this.

Life is complicated. We always think everyone else's lives seem to be working fine, without knowing any of their inner workings. We pass someone in the street, chatting happily, and think that everything must be perfect for them. We look at ourselves and see only faults, look at others and see only their good characteristics. Everyone has a mask, to some extent, behind which their true feelings are hidden. To some that mask is obvious. To others it isn't even perceptible.

So many small things can contribute to make a big thing. Big things can feed off each other, making everything seem worse than it is. How to stop this cycle? If I was to know that, then I'd be a lot more help to others and to myself. How to control it? To keep everything in perspective. To remember how each of the big things is in fact a small thing that has been enlarged by your worries. That the huge things are big things in a similar form. We fear of doing things that appear incorrect, of making mistakes, of appearing stupid or selfconcious.

Is there even such a thing as self-control? What is it that it means; someone who can control themselves? Or learn to understand themselves, where they appear in control because that which bothers everyone else doesn't bother them. To know what is big and what is small. And act appropriately. This is easier said than done. But it must be possible.

Lights, Ponder ... Action!

And we're under way with revision. Of sorts. At least, we're theoretically under way. And that's almost as good.

Four exams to do. Lots of preparation to do. This year I am being much more diligent, i.e. I am preparing much more in advance of the day of judgement itself. Time to start getting an idea of everything that's going on. It tends to help.

In other news: Royal Mail suck, Sven Goran Erikson is an idiot, ironing is boring and Scooby Doo is pure genius in dog form.

Momentous Step?

Today marks the last submission of my last ever essay as an undergraduate. I feel strangely unemotional. Having been awake for the last 40 hours while composing the final version could have had something to do with it I guess.

Sleep ...