Exams are on...

And here's my apalling confession: I quite like exams, actually.

Sad, isn't it?

It's just that, well, it's always the beginning of the holidays, you don't have to go to class, it's self-regulated, but with absolute deadlines. Exams are sort of like 'Xtreme Class Quiz: To the Max!' aren't they? Pressure, can-you-do-it-in-time-?-ness, multiple choice or else essays which there are usually a choice in, sometimes you go in, and are stressed, and you look at the questions, and you're like "Oh, I know that" and it's just great. ('Course sometimes you have no idea, and that pretty much sucks, but meh, exams aren't meant to be fun, it's not like you're losing potential fun or anything. Just your future.)

Plus, in stuvac, everything becomes more fun. There's the excitment of forbidden pleasure in grocery shopping. You feel daring, and as if you're on a major outing, if you so much as go to the corner shop for a litre of milk. And don't even get me started on the baking. Ohhh, the baking that gets done. The hours of flicking through the iPod on Shuffle, racing to figure out title and artist first, extra points if singing hasn't begun yet. (Plus, y'know, I always beat Catie, and I love that).

Yesterday, fun was had by all when Catie spend 45 minutes trying to open my skylight (while I editted her absolutely fascinating 7000 word essay on towns in early britain) with the specially designed to be impossible hook on a long pole thing. Which she then accidentally broke my light shade with.

So I got to have a fun evening trip to Broadway to by new light shades for both of us, as well as 2 singlet tops (2 for $15 from JayJays! Checkit, people, cheap clothes For The Win). And now I have a new light shade! It's a little odd, because the light in my room is all different,but it's also just Nifty. Also, at $9.95, if I get sick of it within a week, then that's still value for money. It was a surprising amount of fun, and I spent the obligatory 3 minutes watching the little Santa on a bicycle that goes back and forth along a string, which was also great.

(No, seriously)

The only dark cloud on all this loveliness is that in my exam yesterday at first I was incredibly, cripplingly tired, which I then overcame, but then I was overcome with a wierd wave of claustrophobia and can't-sit-still-in-this-room-any-longer,-I-feel-like-I'm-suffocating-ness, which was odd, but also new and different for me.

It was kinda funny,actually, because there I was in my Abnormal Pysch exam going "Ohmigosh (well, not really, I just love writing that like that), am I having a panic attack? Oh no!"and then the rest of me went "Wait a minute, you have none of the symptoms of panic attacks whatsoever, take it from someone who was studying this just yesterday for this very exam. You idiot" and then mentally slapped the stressed bit of me upside the head. I still had that restless feeling in the backs of my knees, but sometimes you just have to deal with these things.

It's also amusing that people with Panic disorder and Agoraphobia go to lengths to avoid Panic Attacks, and have all these fun and zany safety behaviours like "don't catch the bus, I had an attack there once" and "tap all mailboxes" and so on [not unlike OCD, which is related, but which amusingly, my lecture notes had this to say about "Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: obsessions and compulsions are rare in this disorder" (among other stuff, obviously)] and ...where was I? Oh yes... and also fear that they'll have a heart attack/die/go mad. Conversely, that happened to me and I was busy fearing lest I develop agoraphobia or Panic Disorder or something.

Actually, I was in HMV this afternoon (I had a legitimate excuse to be there in stuvac, honest!) (See, it does make going out more fun)and they had this music DVD on which made me feel sort of like in that exam again, I had the urge to flee the shop. Weird. Particularly for me, anyone will tell you that the only thing that usually gives me the urge to flee a shop is another, more alluring, shop. (or the song "My Hump" by the BlackEyed Peas coming on. Ugh, worst song ever. But everyone always flees that song, surely. Everyone I've heard it in the company of, certainly). So anyway, I stayed in the shop and finished what I was doing, because you can't flee "bad vibes", or they multiply and before you know it, are everywhere.

This worries me a little, because the last time I had that awful feeling of absolutely being completely unable to be where I was a second longer was when I went on the Gravitron at Luna Park. Which was pretty exciting too, I've never asked anyone to stop a ride before. It was just so undealwithably awful. Anyway, that was months ago, and then I had a slightly milder equivalent in my exam (which I stuck out, but which I did not, perhaps, check as thouroughly as I usually would before I left), and then again today, which is the day after, although less strongly again. So that seems sort of intensifying in frequency.

But, on reflectiion, I'm pretty sure that this is all bollocks, so that's ok.

Anyway, I'd best get back to work...

Today's star goes to the first person to list me ...let's say 10 (I'll make it less if no-one can, so keep checking for number reduction)... songs with numbers in their titles. Bonus point if you have 10 sequential numbers.

Have a nice weekend everyone, and good luck to those of us who still have exams. Friendly death (perhaps mild injury? Ok: a paper cut) wished to everyone already on holidays.

And in case I don't post between now and then, Happy 21st Birthday to Bec for Monday. (Do let her know I said so, Sam dear).

Also, good afternoon, good evening and goodnight.

(Aaargh! look how long it's taking me to sign out! Procrastination much? *Drags self sternly off stage right by ear*)

*breaks free, runs back on* WAIT! check this awesome stuff out! Yay LOTR comedy stuff! http://pointlesswasteoftime.com/film/50reasons.html/

Dammit! How do you make URLs nifty so that say "click here"?

Anyway, *truges off to work again*