Dooooom.

It's exam time again! Not for me of course, those days are long gone and, if I so wish, I never have to do another written exam in my life. I never really minded exam time though; it was a change from lectures, studying with friends was always fun and exams were one of the few things in life I was pretty good at. I've been developing my cramming skills for many years.

But I'm looking through rose tinted specs these days, now that it's all over. If I think back honestly I remember the stress, the guilt at not doing enough studying, the stomach-flipping feeling you get when you open an exam paper and have no idea how to answer the first question, the panic when you realise with 2 minutes to go that you totally misunderstood one of the problems... yeah, it had its bad sides! I feel sick thinking about it now actually...

This is the Whitla Hall, just beside the main building at Queen's. It's one of several exam halls around the University, but is definitely the most impressive, and we have our graduation ceremony there too. In a couple of months some of these people will be back on the steps, wearing gowns and hoods and preparing to leap into the big bad world.

Unless they do a PhD, then they'll just bum about here for another few years like me :)