Speed up or slow down

You know when you simultaneously want time to speed up a few days and want to travel back in time a few weeks so you have more time? That’s pretty much pre-HSC-exam me. Part of me just wants it to be Monday morning so that I can just cram and do the stupid exam and have it over with. I haven’t done as much preparation as I could have done for English, but if I’m well rested a three hour cram session will get me through paper one. The other part of me, probably a larger but less vocal part of me, wants to go back in time so I have another two weeks to prepare for everything. Paper one should be okay after I really cut down my essay (like, in half. It’s about 1700 words and I want it to be about 900 words; I added a chunk as I didn’t write enough about my prescribed text in the trial, but now I have to work out what to cut) and stuff it and my creative writing ideas and technique preparation into my brain. Paper two? Not so much. Hamlet is a fascinating play but an incredibly large module where the question could be on pretty much anything, so you have to be prepared for anything. The other modules are manageable but the idea of writing three essays in one day is really daunting.

I think my SOR teacher nailed it when he said that our class is really good at eloquently writing nothing but the important thing is to actually write relevant things. We’re good at recalling things and we’re good at writing, whether or not we actually have something to write about. That's great; if any of us forget exactly what Judaism says about a particular type of sexual ethics we can probably work it out and bluff, just without the quotes that will get you full marks. The double-edged sword of the situation is that it creates a sense of security. That's helpful as it brings reassurance that we can get decent marks on any question, even if there's a question where you've forgotten some important point and so have to write around it. It's problematic as it then makes it really easy for our brains to convince themselves that procrastinating for one more hour or one more day is okay. The thing that has been our weak point in general is studying consistently as most of us can get good marks by cramming a few hours the weekend or few nights before. Hence why I want time to speed up; part of me, the part that has been telling me all along that procrastination is okay as our school is naturally really good at BSing its way through things, just wants me to face it and rely on memory and BSing ability so that all this stress can go away. The other part of me is telling that part of me to shut up and go back to cutting down my essay plan. Well, that part has finally won.

I’ve always preferred writing essays to editing them back to the word limit.

A positive note: I feel really good about the other four of my subjects. The only problem would be not going as well as I want to in individual subjects, but that's only with subjects that I love. It's just my Englishes that are the problem. And, of course, two units of English are examined the first week and those two units of English have to contribute to my ATAR.

 

So hi ho, hi ho, to essayland I go.