Pre-exam (well…) ramblings
A thought came to me a while ago, and this is quite a pessimistic one, even by my standards…and extremely fragmented. Note that none of this has been proofread.
Tomorrow’s the last ICT practical exam. Friday’s the real Spanish oral exam. What “is” and “isn’t” right now is basically going to be just that. It’s at that point where, if I pass, I pass, and if I don’t…I go home and eat chocolate.
Hang on, GCSE isn’t about passing and not passing! Well, it is, in a way…at least for me…at least for a select few subjects: Spanish, ICT and English (which I have slightly lower expectations for, even though it is my first language). ICT practicals, in particular, is one area where there’s not much excuse for doing badly, given that the help files are all there.
I normally don’t agree on competing with others — it’s about personal progress. But this one isn’t just about competing with others or personal progress — it’s both…I know of at least 2 people who have the same target grade as I do for Spanish, and for some reason, I feel as if I have to beat not only my previous score, but their scores as well. It’s ridiculous, really, but I think Spanish, ICT and perhaps Music will be the subjects which determine whether, in a few years’ time, I’ll be able to look back at this year and feel good about it, or whether I won’t want to look back at this year at all. I already know I’m not going to do amazingly well in Maths or Science; certainly not in Economics.
Not surprisingly, the one subject that’s been bugging me for a while is Spanish. And that’s because I know it’s not just a subject to me, like Science is — Spanish is…a life thing. Like French. You can’t “talk in the language of Chemistry”, but you can talk in Spanish or French — I mean, with this point, you either get it or you don’t.
…I’m not going to kill myself if I don’t do as well as I want in Spanish or ICT (much to your disappointment).
10% isn’t that many marks, is it? Is 13%? But I know I won’t raise my percentage by 13%, especially not in Spanish — the listening exam holds me back. And I can’t rely on continuous writing to raise my overall percentage anymore…I mean it’s just depressing innit. I think I’ll have a cookie right about now.
At least one thing’s almost certain — I shan’t be taking higher French along with higher Spanish next year, because the classes happen at the same time. Is it too late to sign up for the French GCSE?…of course it is. So I know one dream won’t come true — taking 3 higher languages for IB. I originally chose ab-initio French just for a laugh, but when I found out that I might actually be capable of getting an A in French GCSE (even though I don’t take it, as you’ve probably already figured out), I couldn’t stop thinking about taking higher French. Oh well, you don’t need certification to be good in a language. I’ll just be fucking around in ab-initio French next year then, I guess…strange that you can take two sciences, two humanities or two arts (I think) but not two languages.
No use dwelling on it, though…this is how it’s going to be. It’s far too late to revise for ICT — the exam’s in 8.5 hours. Spanish on Friday morning.
I remember saying to Ravish, just before the ICT exam on Friday, that I wasn’t as worried as I should be for a “real” exam — my thinking at that time being that it was alright to have a laugh in the mock exams, but I thought I’d be more worried come the real exam. But no, I was laughing my way in and laughing as soon as I got out. And laughing on the way home. And laughing at home. Because I grew up with technology, and I’m surrounded by technology and a lovely group of geeks every single day.
Not so with Spanish, which is why I’m far more concerned about Spanish than ICT.
But yeah…this is it. All my life, it seems, has been about building up to this first stage of “real” exams. And now it’s finally here, it seems unreal…I still don’t fully believe it. I guess I’m just slow. It really feels like a dream, and I haven’t quite figured out yet whether I like it or not. Right now, I’m right in the middle, as I usually am.
