every day life – Page 33

Breath

I am currently procrastinating from studying Japanese. I am quite truly sick and tired of revision and I just…can’t seem to remember anymore than I already have. But I am pleased to say- my exams are over!! Had my Circuits and Fields last Saturday, which went even worse than expected. The paper was written by a different lecturer and I have never before seen questions like that in my entire life. They were at a totally different level from the questions and past papers my lecturer had given/set before. Harder, more complicated, less clear as to what the question wanted. Methods had different names too, which didn’t help. I actually couldn’t answer most of the questions. I had never ever seen circuits that looked like that- how was I supposed to analyze them? It was terrible.

Then I thankfully had a nice long break until Friday, spent mostly stuck in halls procrastination from revision and revising. I did go out Thursday to go get Sushi with a friend. And shop by myself a little afterwards. Instead of revising. It was pretty fun.

My friend and I went to Yo!Sushi as they had an offer on. I wasn’t really feeling well and wasn’t that hungry, and I had to face being in the embarrassing situation of not being able to use chopsticks and having nothing else to eat with but chopsticks (thanks, yo sushi and I won’t be going back to give you any more of my money any time soon. I don’t even like sushi, I just go there for the tamago and the katsu curry.) but it was nice to chat to my friend. This came up at a point- that I have no friends. And I told my friend I honestly don’t need any friends but her (well, I told her I didn’t need friends and had to furiously backtrack to explain that I meant I didn’t need other friends, oh awkward). I have the feeling people expect me to be living differently than I do, that they find it strange that I don’t go out, that they feel bad for me that I’ve not gotten any friends on my course or in my halls. But these things don’t matter for me. There are situations where I feel yeah, it would be nice to have friends on my course but that’s for selfish reasons- needing someone to contact when i’m not sure of coursework deadlines say. But, in truth I don’t really need people for any other reason. I don’t like to talk to people. Being around people makes me anxious, and I end up feeling exhausted because of it. I feel embarrassed by the things I say, I feel self conscious and I just don’t like it. Not around my best friend, or my sister, the people I trust. They’re enough. I don’t trust easily, and I can’t relax around people until I know I can trust them. They are the only people I can really relax around, and thus I like being with them. No one else. I don’t know. Sometimes I feel strange myself. Sometimes I wonder if there is something wrong with me. There are so many things I can’t do that most people my age can (use chopsticks, for instance, apply makeup, go to a bar or club and know what I am doing etc) and I guess…I feel a little like the odd one out sometime. Even though I feel mostly fine with myself, it seems the world is telling me that it is wrong to be this way. :(

I don’t know where this paragraph came from. Or if it even makes any sense.

I’ll leave it there and continue with the day to day stuff.

I probably shoulda revised more during those 6 days. I had electronic engineering at 9am on Friday, and the paper was OK but I couldn’t remember everything and I made lots of little mistakes and forgot gray code thus totally messing up on one question. Hopefully should have enough marks to pass that one? I hope. I’m trying not to think about it anymore. Results should be out mid February/by the end of February and there’s nothing I can do until then.

Today I went out again, got brows waxed, shopped, had coffee at Starbucks. Nothing major, but OK. I was mainly avoiding studying Japanese, because I did mention I’m sick of studying yeah?

Semester 2 starts on Monday. I have lectures from 9am until 1pm, then from 2pm until 6pm and then I have Japanese from 6:30pm until 8:30pm. yeah. What a fun start to a new semester. I am in a way…dreading semester 2. There’s a lot more labs this semester and I don’t really like labs? And I start something called real time systems this semester and apparently we get to choose our own groups. This phrase usually makes most people happy. Most people who aren’t me. That phrase brings back memories of standing out in the cold during P.E lessons waiting, waiting to be picked and no one ever would. I’d always be the one left behind, the one that someone is stuck with. I am totally dreading RTS, not only because it is going to be difficult, but because I am going to have to deal with working with someone I don’t know, and someone who probably doesn’t want to work with me as much as I don’t want to work with them. This is one of those situations where I think, for selfish reasons, that it would be nice to have friends :/

Forget Japanese revision, I’m going to bed now. So tired. I feel a little sad, but no, its more I feel like having a good cry. Just, letting it out. All this worry and anxiety, all this stress. But I’m too tired for even that.

Listening To: Mad Soul Child- Breath
mood: tired

And now I wish everything would return to the way its supposed to be.

Warning: a very long entry about exams. I talk about C programming and Communications engineering and I whine a lot and generally feel very sorry for myself. You may want to skip this one.

So I had my Computer Engineering exam on Wednesday aka C Programming. The exam was held in a reasonably small computer room so we were split off into two groups- one took the exam in the morning and the other…later in the morning. I was in group 2 so I arrived there at 10.45am alongside everyone else and then we were stuck sitting inside a lecture room for 30+ minutes waiting for the exam to be setup, and for the other group to leave, as we couldn’t come into contact with the other group. It was terribly boring. I couldn’t even browse the net on my phone as we had to switch them off and put them in our bags. Then the actual exam, which was horrible. The past three exam papers have been pretty much identical- but this one? Almost totally different. I had memorized the most beautiful solution for opening and reading a file, then returning statistics about it because it had been on every exam paper for years, and this year they did’t have it. I wanted to cry. My solution was beautiful OK, and I had worked so hard to memorize it in just a matter of days. (Is it bad to call coding beautiful? Like, that’s not too geeky is it?) And for the past few years they instruct us to write a program which lets users type, and then counts the number of key presses and the percentage of vowels/numbers pressed. But for this paper they decided to change it and make it more difficult and honestly I didn’t understand. So I just wrote the program that did the former and left out the complicated bits XD Thankfully they had the question where we prompt the user to enter resistor values and calculates the series and parallel arrangement resistances, which I can totally do. My best friend taught me functions by walking me through that code, and it was the first time I thought “Maybe I could do this programming thing”. A hope quickly dashed by certain other questions, like the second part of the exam papers. The questions are longer and unpredictable and ugh. The last question had to be the worse. Through a series of if statements and while/for loops I managed to make it work…to an extent… and my coding was messy and just ugh. I am so bad with C Programming.

I got home from that exam and just fucked around wasting time for hours, until it was late and I really needed to cram for my communications exam today but it was a very half asked attempt. I got up early this morning to cram as well, but again it was a lazy effort. I truly needn’t have bothered with even that much. Communications engineering is a subject I hate because I am terrible at it. In theory it seems quite understandable, in practice it’s like WHAT. WHAT IS HAPPENING. WHAT DOES THIS GRAPH EVEN MEAN :| The past 3 exams papers have been near identical so I decided just to memorize methods and focus on understanding it at a later time. Typically again, just like in C programming, the exam had bits thrown in there that had never been on any exam before. I wanted to cry. I couldn’t answer questions, and I made a royal mess of an entire section of the exam worth 25 marks. 25% of the entire paper. I dropped so many marks. They also didn’t have the two questions I really wanted and understood and was good at. 3 years in a row they have asked about line balancing, and this year the didn’t! ¬__¬ I am hopeful that I may scrape a pass, but probably I’ll fail. It was depressing, though I guess I had that one coming with my terrible approach to the exam.

I came home and lost myself in fanfic and now its late and I still haven’t revised for my exam on Saturday. I also have a Japanese assessment on Monday that I am unprepared for which is also…bothering me. I feel like I am wasting such a good opportunity, and a lot of money. Finally I have the opportunity to learn the language I love most, but now I don’t have the time. Well, that’s a lie. I have the time, I just cannot memorize a language on top of everything I need to know for my exams. My memory is just not that good. I am just not that clever, nor that motivated.

I’m losing confidence here. All my exams have been terrible and I just, can’t be bothered anymore. Next is circuits and fields and I like it, and I’ve worked so hard to understand it…and my poor father has sat with me for hours teaching it to me but I just cannot memorize it and I can’t do it without my notes and I can’t do it quickly so I’m terrified.

And I’ve reached the point where i am so scared of failing, of these papers also being as horrible as the past three, that I don’t even want to try. I don’t want to do this anymore. Because I said I was content to scrape a pass and I am but that doesn’t stop me wanting more. That doesn’t stop the fear that I won’t even reach that- and then what? I am naturally anxious all the time, always worrying about this and that, and exams just make it so much worse. It hurts. And its driving me crazy.

(And it, all this, makes me doubt myself. Why am I doing engineering? I feel like I am not clever enough for this, not motivated enough, not dedicated enough. I wonder what it is about this subject that I couldn’t let go of it the first time round, that I worked so hard for it. Despite how useless it makes me feel I want so badly to be an engineer. But it does, it makes me feel terrible about myself. I guess that’s what happens when you do a degree? It’s not like anything is easy. My sister, she loved chemistry, until she did a degree, and then she hated it, and then she graduated and got a job and now she loves it again. She always said she’d never work in an office, but she is and she is so happy. Will that happen for me? But I cannot imagine so far ahead.)

Sorry for the past few whiny entries. Hopefully by the time exams are over I can get myself into a better place, well, if Semester two and starting electrical engineering and real time systems doesn’t also make me miserable XD

Listening To: MC Sniper- BK Love
mood: stressed

Greed

I am back in halls. My dad drove my down on Sunday. I attempted to pack less stuff, but I think I only succeeded in packing all of it better. The car was still very full. :/ We arrived in the late afternoon and then I had to unpack everything and make my room livable again whilst my dad set up my computer for me. The afternoon passed by quickly and it was soon, too soon, that my dad had to leave. It was kind of sad saying good bye to my dad, realizing I was all alone here again. I didn’t have time to dwell though, as I had revision to do for my exam on Monday. I alternated between revising and organizing/unpacking and ended up going to bed pretty late. I woke up early on Monday, exhausted, stressed, nervous, and spent the morning revising, slowly becoming more and more nervous as it sank in that today was when my exams started.

I walked down to the sports center later for my exam and there were just people everywhere. I have never been to such a large exam in my life. We had to queue in order to enter the exam hall, shuffling along slowly, waiting for our turn to go find our seats. The hall was huge, separated into two halves, then different blocks, and it was more than a little confusing and overwhelming. I found out what my block and seat number were, but the seats weren’t numbered and so I had to ask two separate moderators, the second one thankfully showed me to my seat. I am not sure how i was supposed to find it otherwise. The exam began quickly. there may have been instructions, but I did not hear them. The place was too large, and there were too many people. I was still struggling to fill my cover sheet in (I did not manage to fill my cover sheet in until after the exam, where i was so rushed I filled it out all wrong most likely). I had gotten to the exam on time but I had been one of the last to enter due to the fact i was at the end of the queue. It was a bad, rushed, confusing start to a terrible exam. The exam paper was horrendous. Completely sneaky, and I am sure I made several little mistakes that fucked everything up. As the exam went on I became filled with a sense of hopelessness, and disappointment. This was maths. I had actually worked for this exam, maybe prioritizing it over other subjects. And still I couldn’t do it. I came out the exam more than a little unhappy, and ate half a chocolate reindeer that my sister had bought me on Saturday. (It now sits headless on my desk, although by today half its body is gone too). I then forced myself to revise some more, for my exam on Thursday and for programming today.

Well, I thought it was today.

I got up early, still feeling exhausted and ill and totally not used to this kind of routine, so I could go through the past papers one last time for the exam, which only started at 10.45am. I left a little late and had to rush to get there only to find there was no one there. I began to panic as time ticked by and no one was there. I eventually managed to find someone to ask and he looked at me strangely and told me “there are no exams being held today. there is one tomorrow, and on Thursday” and my panic turned to embarrassment. Well, that was obvious. Of course there was no one there when there was no exam. I honestly wished the ground would swallow me whole. I rushed out the building, sat down on a nearby bench and texted my best friend, just for someone to tell it to, just so someone could tell me its OK, it happens. I felt ridiculous and frustrated with myself. I then went to buy a smoothie and found a computer so I could sit down and check my exam timetable, and indeed, it is there in bold letters- 18th of January. I even checked that timetable this very morning. Isn’t it funny how we convince ourselves of things? I was so convinced it was today that I just brushed past the date of the exam, focusing on the seat number and other things. I realized as I walking slowly back to halls, and later my friend also reminded me- that it could have been worse. I could have thought it was Wednesday when it was Tuesday. It could have been like last year- when i realized at 1am on the day of the exam that I had an exam that very day. At least this time I thought it was a day before, not a day after. Oh, but I am so bad with remembering my exams. It makes me feel pathetic and i get frustrated with myself. I am nearly 20 and I can’t even manage myself you know?

But I forced myself to stay positive and let today became what Wednesday would have been- i came back to my room , gathered my things and went to Tesco. Then I came back and well I should have revised but instead I watched Boku to Star no 99 Nichi and then fucked around on the internet and now its 7:00pm and I still haven’t done any revision. It’s somewhat worrying. I find myself losing motivation, becoming tired. I admit I kind of wished my exam was today. I had prepared myself for it being today and it kind of threw me out that it wasn’t. Like, I wasn’t prepared for the exam, but I was ready just to get it over and done with. Now everything is out of sync, and all my plans have been messed up. I even skipped my Japanese lesson on Monday so I could cram for the exam I thought I had today. I feel like such a idiot, really.I hope tomorrow things go well- that i get to my exam on time, and that the paper is nice and that i can do it. I’m really stressed and nervous right now. My face is all broken out, and I’ve lost my appetite in favour of snacking on junk and I can’t fall asleep at night and I’m tired as anything and I’ve still got four more exams to go. I hate exams :(

Listening To: Kiyoharu - 孤独を愛せる人
mood: stressed

Stress

It’s past 1am and I am wide awake. My sleep schedule is currently set to staying up until the small hours and sleeping until midday. I am going to suffer when I go back to university. I go back this Sunday and my exams start on Monday. That is two days until my exams start? Just about. How nerve wracking is that?

So Exams: I have Mathematics on Monday, and I can’t do it at all without consulting my notes, textbooks and finally the answers. Then I have Computer Engineering on Tuesday, which is all C programming, and I can’t C program. I can just about do half the paper ~~by copying from~~ with help from my notes but other than that…no. Following that I have Communications Engineering on Thursday which I also just can’t do. I’m trying to learn it by memorizing the past paper answers seeing so the past papers never vary, which would be a grand plan if I had a good memory. I don’t have a good memory. Then on Saturday, bright and early at 9am, I have Circuits and Fields which I struggle with, and it takes me 1 million years to do any single question (and I only have 2 hours). Plus the exam paper is being written by a new person which means it may be completely different from the past papers. Then I have a break for 6 days (yay!) before my Electronic Engineering exam. 5 exams, each two hours long.

I had great ambitions to do really well on these exams, so I could reap the opportunities that would bring, but right now I’m just hoping, desperately, that I can scrape a pass. THAT’S ALL I WANT. But even that seems like something I may not achieve. It’s terrifying to think about what will happen if I don’t manage it. I really don’t want to be dealing with re sits :/

Besides that I have two course works to hand in by Tuesday (one I have thankfully completed, the other I have only half done), and I am starting Japanese Level 1 Part 2 on Monday, and I have not done any Japanese revision over the holidays. And I need to complete a log book for the Part 1 classes by Monday, and I’ve not completed that. I think I am also taking an assessment for Part 1 sometime? Yeah, we’ll see how badly that goes (I recall my Italian GCSE exam where I ended up panicking because I didn’t know anything and ended up blurting out nonsense like “I’d like a trout and cheese sandwich” :|) And I have to pack and organize all my stuff for moving back into halls on Sunday, and I know I’ll end up forgetting something.

Needless to say I’m a little stressed out right now. So much to do, and so much to remember. :/

Listening To: Namie Amuro- COPY THAT
mood: Wide Awake

But a part of me sometimes wants

In the last entry I was packing up and about to leave halls. Let me continue from there.

Packing up took ages. My dad came fairly late, and we ended up only finishing up and leaving at about half ten, eleven-ish. The car was pretty full, but this meant I got to have a duvet on my lap for the entire journey back which wasn’t so bad (read: gloriously warm). We stopped at McDonalds on the way back and I was all :D :D :D whilst my dad was clearly just trying to stay awake. It was surreal coming back home- a little bit because I had gotten kind of used to uni, but mostly for the silly reason that it had been snowing at home whilst at uni there had been no snow. At first there was just a light dusting but arriving home there was a thick layer of snow on the ground. It was unexpected :o Unpacking took a much shorter time and I was soon curled up in my own bed. The next day involved lots of organising and lots of washing, and then soon it became the usual of sitting around wasting time. I was home.

And time has just flown past since then. I can’t believe I’m now on the last few weeks of my Christmas break. I have spent the last few weeks sleeping until ridiculous hours, taking forever to get ready for the day just because I can, attempting to revise but mostly failing at it and lazing about taking advantage of having unlimited internet to watch lots of dramas. It’s been wonderful being able to sleep in every morning, to have a long hot mould-free shower, to eat whatever I want and when I want it, to have my cat around me. Of course my room is in chaos right now, with boxes and bags everywhere waiting to be packed up again, but that’s to be expected. I don’t go out much, so I can leave most of it packed.

Christmas itself was fairly quiet and uneventful. My sister invited two of her Chinese friends to spend Christmas with our family. They were polite and kind and it was a lot less awkward than I had feared it would be. It’s actually very interesting to be around people from such a vastly different culture than yourself. For Christmas I got some awesome presents, ate a lot of awesome food, played monopoly with my sister and her friends and lost miserably… all fairly ordinary and nice.

New years was not as nice as Christmas. It wasn’t bad, but it was awkward and exhausting and I wish I’d spent it at home with my parents and my cat and the internet. I actually spent new years with my old school friends and I was dreading it from the moment I agreed to go, and I can’t say it defied my expectations. Most of said friends I’ve only once or twice since we left school, if that. And we don’t have much in common and they are all so much more mature than me. They’re all second years, with houses, with busy lives and normal hobbies that are not watching Asian dramas or fangirling over fucking Korean boy bands with too many members. It wasn’t so bad, but I felt awkward and out of place. No, I’ve always felt awkward and out of place around them, and its only gotten worse. I was ready to leave by about midnight but ended up only getting home around 2am because I had to wait for my one friend to be able to take me back. :/ I am fairly sure I said some things I shouldn’t, and did some things I shouldn’t, because I always do.

I can’t say I feel particularly excited about the New Year either, which probably contributed to my melancholy at the New Year ‘s party. All the new year really means is that I now have exams in just two weeks. That I have to go back to university in two weeks and deal with all that stress again. I’ve enjoyed the past few weeks, but I think these next two weeks aren’t going to be nearly as relaxing. Now comes the part where every day exams creep closer, and every day is filled with anxiety about said exams. Here comes the regret for not being productive enough, for wasting time. I have been trying to revise but I honestly don’t feel like I’m really taking anything in. Which is maybe worse. Because I’m trying here, but still I’m not sure I’ll ever get to the level I need to be to achieve the things I want. I want to get good grades, but I just…I just don’t think I can do it. I honestly don’t think I am capable of getting the marks I want and I fear these exams will turn out my A levels, and that is not a good thing.

It’s heart-breaking to grow to want something, want it so much, when you’ll probably never get it.

I should end this entry on a more positive note, shouldn’t I? A belated merry Christmas, and happy new years to anyone who reads this blog. May the next year be awesome for you :D

Listening To: Daesung- Lunatic
mood: ill

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