Leftovers!

And so, the day of the exam dawned.

It wasn't a particularly good start. An exhausting night's sleep saw a fairly big nightmare in which a friend and I were terminally ill and trying to cure ourselves with oxo cubes and raspberry jam, there was a ride on a steam train, and my brother was murdered and I went after his attackers. I was just stabbing one of his attackers when the Wonderspouse woke me up because I was screaming!

So the morning started with a headache, which I cured with ibuprofen, extreme tiredness, which I cured with a caffeine drink, and the powdery bits at the bottom of the Frosties, which I cured by having a second breakfast of chocolate pillows.

As it was an afternoon exam, I had the morning to "relax" in. This was easier said than done, especially as the house is rapidly descending into something resembling a student dive, and I wasn't really sure how long it would take me to get to the exam venue. I pratted around on facebook a bit, looked at the website for the Welsh language course I'm starting soon, watched Helicopter Heroes on telly, packed my bag, looked up the exam location on Google maps, and so on.

I also played with the ratties a lot. I got both of them out of the cage and they scrambled around all over me, which was lovely. Then I played them Bach's second Cello Suite on the viola, which they seemed to enjoy!

I left about two and a half hours to get to Milton Keynes (some hotel in a stadium) so I had time to get lost and so on. When I got there (it took about an hour and a half) I realised I was ferociously hungry. There was a big Asda next door, so I popped in to get a sandwich, but saw they had a restaurant, so got proper food (which was what I really wanted). Beef and ale pie, chips and peas, followed by chocolate cake, and washed down with orange fizzy pop - the only thing that could have made it any better was a big thick blob of yellow custard on the cake! The price was seriously good too - 6 quid for the lot!

Then I went into the exam venue. It was rather surreal - the foyer of some posh hotel seemed to have turned into a dossing ground for random folk. People sat looking through notes, chatting, checking pencils, getting ID out (OU exams require photo ID with signature to prove that candidates are who they say they are) etc etc.

The exam room was actually rather nice, and I had a desk right at the front, near to the door (I get this at every exam - since I'm a bit bonkers, they allow me to be near an exit so I don't get too claustrophobic). The paper was OK, and I'd say that although I haven't done spectacularly well, I've almost certainly passed, and if I'm lucky will have an OK mark - I'm predicting 2/3 probability of a "Pass 3" and 1/3 probability of a "Pass 4".

It did show me that sitting concentrating for 3 hours is still quite a challenge for me. This was the first exam back after abandoning studies 2 years ago owing to a seriously bad episode of nuttiness. All in all, it's a major achievement to get through it at all. I'm also aware that I still have a bit of work left to do on the course - I want to make sure I'm properly familiar with all the material before I start the next lot of study. But I've done the best I can for now.

Afterwards I drove home (another hour and a half), then immediately went to do lesson planning and handout making in my study. Then I went to collect the Wonderspouse, who'd bought fish and chips, and now, finally, I'm on my sofa with a glass of wine. There's just a tiny bit of preparation left to do for tomorrow's lesson - that will be done in the morning.

Oh, and the picture - the background is the handbook, which we were permitted to take into the exam. It's quite helpful to have it, although it doesn't actually tell you how to do the questions, just gives theorems and so on, so we don't actually have to rote-learn everything in the course!

And on the handbook - the leftover fruit gums and polos. I always eat fruit gums and polos in exams, have been doing so for over 20 years now. Not sure why those particular things, but it's now a deeply-ingrained habit. I don't have a lucky charm, or lucky pants, or anything like that (I just make sure I have comfy clothes without scratchy labels etc), but I do always take fruit gums and polos - not sure what doing an exam without them would be like! I'll probably never find out!