Fourth Form of Madness

I had an exam this week. I wasn’t that stressed about it. I did my usual thing of studying past exam papers and noticing the questions that came up the most over the years and based my studies around those questions. My husband has often said if I spent as much time actually studying the subject as I spent trying to work out what would be the questions in the exam I would smash the exam anyway. I’ve always loved my husband’s clear, rational, realist logic. Loved it, but for a dreamy, irrational, idealist like me, I just can’t follow it. Anyway, in this particular subject the past exam papers were basically the same over the last seven years. Jackpot! All I had to do was pick three questions, study them in depth, write 3 essays, turn up at exam and write furiously for 2 hours and then go home safe in the knowledge that I had passed.

So there I am on exam day, hanging out with my fellow external students from all other courses, laughing with the exam supervisors, buying free range eggs (and this people is why I love the uni I study at – what other uni sells free range eggs at exams) and arranging the thirty pens I have bought to the exam on my desk in artistic patterns. I still haven’t quite shaken free of the fear of my pen stopping in an exam but hey I’m not alone on this one, at every exam I am surrounded by Bic pen hoarders rolling them back and forth on their desk in nervous anticipation prior to the exam. I’m doing a quick check in my head that I can remember my essays on Nietzsche, Heidegger and Kierkegaard appear to be all there. I’m signing off my attendance sharing a joke with the supervisor, thinking life is good, things are controlled and running smoothly. And then it happens. Reading time begins and I am allowed to turn my exam page over. As my eyes run over my paper, I wonder why my Professor had to have a mid-life crisis this year, this semester. He had not only changed every single question on the exam but made them obscure! I’m the only external student for this unit this semester and the only student of the unit that takes an exam as I don’t get to sit tutorials. This is personal, he wanted me to actually learn something damn it!. I wondered briefly if my hubby had secretly called said Professor and arranged the new exam, then dismiss this idea and realise this is a fine example of the divine comedy of life and I chuckle to myself, which does raise a few concerned looks from the supervisors.

So there I am in my 10 minute reading time chuckling to myself about not having prepared for a single question. Actually this is pretty much my worst-exam-ever-scenario that I play out in my head prior to stepping into an exam, the one in which between hyperventilating and sobbing hysterically, I write my name on the exam booklet and then leave after the 10 minutes reading time is over. But back in the exam room, there are no tears, no hyperventilating, just me chuckling to myself. So I decide to use the 10 minutes to relax and take stock of what I do actually know from the past six months and the remainder of my life. I open my muesli bar (yes how cool you are allowed to eat and drink in exams as well at this uni, I think this is because they got sick of people passing out from hunger in 4 hour exams) and stared at my free range eggs for inspiration. Mid muesli bar the creativity gods smiled upon me and I began jotting random ideas down for the best 3 questions I had picked on the paper. Suddenly quotes came back that I could still use from the other essays I had prepared. By the time the official exam time commenced I had the outline of 2 essays and thought I would just let my brain work on the other as I finished those. On I scribbled and scribbled and scribbled. One idea fell into another and even though I thought I didn’t understand the question, I did seem to somehow construct a reply that I felt answered it sufficiently.

It came time for me to answer the third question. The third question involved Albert Camus. I love Camus and luckily I had done one of the semester assignments on him. The fact that I had actually got the bit wrong in my essay that this question was specifically asking me to explore didn’t dampen my confidence. I had reviewed my Professors comments on my semester essay so I knew what the answer should be, I just had to justify my answer and show how I had arrived at the ending. I did send a silent word of thanks to my Professor for this small sign of mercy and commenced scribbling on. As I did my final full stop, I looked up and realised I was the only one left in the exam room, well me and my free range eggs and one exam supervisor who looked like he wanted to leave 30 minute ago. My hand ached but everything else felt wonderful! For once in an exam, I had been forced to think, forced to create and forced to get over my fear of not being prepared. As I wandered out into daylight, keeping a watchful eye out for snakes (and that would be the thing I am not to fond about at my uni), I really felt I had learnt something. I learnt that control is futile, you never have it, you stress yourself out about trying to be in control and all the time you are chasing an illusion, chasing the dragon. I learnt that thinking on your feet is really enjoyable as it opens the floodgates of creativity and life loves creativity. I learned that you never can be “prepared”, life is random, let it flow and you learn to flow with it. Oh yeah and most importantly I learnt the best place in town to buy free range eggs is my uni!