On the 27th of June, I finally started to fill out my details on the front of my exam paper for the 14th and last time. This happened so automatically by this point that, honestly, I could have been writing out my name and candidate number but it could have been ancient Arabic, I have no idea!
One thing that did break this monotony was a physics paper which we had to make an amendment to before starting. A ripple of even more intense quiet spread across the sports hall as we all pricked our ears to hear of this mistake we had to correct.
“Now all of you turn to page 23, question 14.”
You could cut the tension with a spoon seriously, never have we been allowed to open the exam paper before the start time – I could see people out of the corner of my eye sneakily looking at questions on previous pages as they flicked through to the right place, I’m just no way near rebellious enough for that!
“The second line currently reads N equals N subscript O, as in the letter, multiplied by E to the power of minus lambda T,” The invigilator said in his ridiculously posh accent, “However it should read N equals N subscript zero, as in the number, multiplied by E to the power of minus lambda T.”
There was a communal release of breath as we all stifled sniggers. “It’s not a big change, I know, but apparently an important one.” For sure!
But there you go, it’s over now.
This of course comes with the return of older siblings and friends from university. Now obviously I get to see people I haven’t in a long time and while that’s all well and good, in my family the return of my older brother is somewhat nervously anticipated. Basically he doubles our weekly food bill, but that’s not all. When a cake is made in my household, it’s a very serious affair! What people never seem to understand about my living with three hungry brothers is that it’s communism in the extreme – we have to have exactly the same size slice of cake. Of course this is impossible so we take it in turns to be allowed the honour of choosing first which piece is biggest. The thing is, none of us are sad enough to draw up a rota and so instead when such a confectionary item has been prepared, my mum will shout “CAKE ANYONE” and there will be a magnificent stampede down the stairs as we all race to the cupboard to get a plate and then fight for the first place in the ‘cake queue’. The first of these squabbles when my older brother is home is often a little fierce. This time it resulted in the smashing of two plates, and a rather hoarse voice for me from laughing so much!
My brothers never fail to make me laugh. The youngest one posted a Facebook status on Monday complaining about how all three of his older siblings have now finished exams but he still has to get up at seven in the morning for school, failing to mention that we all got up before seven that morning anyway – maybe that’s why he only got four likes 😛
I get what he means though, there is something very wonderful about knowing that you’re finished, it’s over for another year, and in some cases you’ll never have to study a certain subject again – after my last exam I was so elated that I ran around college running a last errand giggling to myself and grinning from ear to ear. I also sent a Facebook message to my friend which simply said “woo” but with 103 ‘o’s on the end. I asked if that was a little too much, his reply was “no facebook message woo can express the goodness of the end” True dat!
The Elephant in the Room 