Let's talk grades, for once.

I need to vent.

The more I think about it,
The more it's driving me nuts
And the more I'm envisioning the me from two hours ago slapping myself conscious,
Writing down what should be written.


But this is bad, isn't it?

I gotta let this one go and look forward.
Heave, ho.
That's one baggage gone.

Cool down, me.


.
This frustration at myself-
Goodness me.

The worst anger is the kind that you hold towards yourself, like a one-way sword and a sharp one at that.
The thing about exams is that I'm really not faring well in it.
In the worst case scenario, I could get retained.

There, I said it.

There is too much at stake..
Is that why this is happening so consistently?

And I know this sounds absurd, but it's not that I haven't studied.
I know that I began revision early, that I mugged Bio, that I did what I could.
I like Biology. It's.. Nice. It's straightforward (or used to be) and it wasn't ever hard to score.
This year however, I have failed it a number of times,
And it is only through a little blood here and there that I managed to pull it up to a sub-pass during the mid-years. That is honestly a pathetic grade if you think about it: Having never dropped below a B, I thought this was still normal. It is JC after all; everyone enters with failing grades.

Still, the main issue here
That I've just now realized,
Is that I actually do know the answers from my hours of mugging.

But when the hall descends into dark silence and the intense scribbling begins,
I freak out.

My brain stops functioning and I can't process what I've just read.
Yeah, and I do love my books-
Which makes this even more ridiculous for me.

It's not really about pride here;
It's that no matter what I think of during the exam, I shoot down as my sole critic.
As a result, a lot of the things that I do know are not written down.
Furthermore, I'm in a state whereby my brain is hardly functional.

I wasn't even analyzing the questions anymore,
I was desperate,
I wrote two essays in fifteen minutes.

I missed out things.
I wasn't thinking.

My heart thumped and my writing hand lost its strength.
I shook as I wrote.
It didn't even look like English anymore.

Just today..
I did both questions for the last section when it was a choice between the two
And when I recalled a fact that was utterly correct-
One that was seemingly unimportant but that I had memorized and hoped was useful-
Had come out in an exam question.

But I wasn't sure.
I told myself I'd return later to write it down if I had time.

After all, I wasn't sure.

Of course time had to run out, of course I flipping didn't write down something I put in effort for.

And,
There it went.

My sanity, my grade, my chance at getting promoted flew out the window.

I really don't know how I did,
But this freezing up that happens throughout exams needs to stop.

Lit is the only subject that I'm good at now,
But that doesn't mean that my hard work for Bio and Math needs to go down the drain just because I'm constantly thinking that I'm wrong, or that I can't do it.

I need to deal with this, I'm seventeen!
There isn't really a need to tell others, but I gotta stop being so wimpy.

I am-
So angry at myself.

For once, grades are threatening my well-being and so
I can't think of it as an exterior factor any longer.

I have to realize its importance, and resolve all the barriers that are hindering me from it.
Time management and nerves, nerves, nerves, that's what.

.