Exam week is sad. Nuff said. (Simone)

Taking a pit stop to write for you, here, folks. I lie. My pit stop is procrastination. But you knew that, really, didn’t you! Let’s disguise this post as a much needed ‘break’ from study, rather than a delay in beginning my take home exam for Power, ahem…

Found myself a little bit overwhelmed with all the study last night. I say  ‘a little’ because no one really wants to declare that they had a breakdown/pulled an all nighter, do they! I was sitting in front of my laptop at 11:45pm after spending the entire weekend/day working on it, little tears oozing down my cheeks, refraining from banging my head against a brick wall. Lucky my house isn’t brick, eh. Mum made me a peppermint tea and told me to take a deep breath. My sister, currently crazed with her only 3/4 subject – a SAT due today (don’t we miss those days!) – told me to Keep Calm and Carry On, because, she said, I was being too much of a perfectionist with my writing, that working on one 1500 word piece for days was too much, so just to call it DONE and then leave it there. God bless her! I sniffled, scrambled to write an ‘Aims and Influences’, put the references in, and then lay down and fell asleep on the couch.

Thus, this morning went brilliantly. I tossed and turned all night, haunted by all the work still to come, accidentally turned my alarm off in my sleep, and hastened to print/staple/find a cover sheet for the assignment. I nearly had a heart attack when the Student Portal continued to reject my correct username and password! But, luckily, I found a way of getting onto the LMS by typing into google, and submitted the assignment into turnitin. This was, may I just point out, not a europhic moment. I think feeling good about having something done takes a bit of time. Because after you’ve been staring at something for ages you actually just want to get rid of it – there is really no feeling involved, just numbness, and wanting to crawl into a hole with a whole packet of Lindt chocolate and to doona-cocoon and sleep and cry… but no. The assignment actually has to be handed in hard copy too, so you have to trek all the way to uni just to hand it in! Brilliant! (Have we not reached the stage where submitting online is enough?!?!). I ran out the door to the tram stop after some more procrastination (coffee is important in exam week), got there and, just as the tram was coming, was like, hmm, did I grab my assignment from my desk?! I know, just a little bit pathetic. I ran back home, upstairs, grabbed it, and waited fifteen minutes for the next tram. Sad!

Getting to uni, I actually felt a miraculous second wind. I love autumn, see. And Melbourne Uni looks so beautiful with all of the autumn leaves scattered over the grass, in the trees. I began my march up to John Medley, and then realised I forgot to go to the post office and grab an A4 envolope and stamps to have my assignment sent back with comments!! I somehow managed to do a full adventure around Carlton in the drizzle to find a post office, get the envolope, and then walk all the way back to uni!

There has only been a few good things about my day, as you now see!

1. Handing in the assignment.  But, as previously stated, my tiredness and knowledge that this afternoon a new essay is to be begun, kind of hindered this relief/excitement!

2. The Nutella and strawberry crepe and mocha I bought for myself as a reward. Bloody amazing. Every time I have on I wonder why I don’t get them all the time! (…and then I realise I just spent $7 on a crepe, which is actually quite a lot of my weekly earnings when the lovely Coles is only giving me three hours of work a week, as I am slowly being replaced by machines, the self checkouts! Abandon them, people! Us uni kids need jobs!).

3. Writing this blog. Maybe it’s the water feature in front of me, or Coldplay in my ears, or the process of blabbering out to you, but one of which is making me a lot calmer. Exhale.

(N.B: I do not recommend trying to walk and eat a crepe at the same time. Disaster in the making or what! The wind blew, hair flicked into my face – sticking to the nutella on my cheeks, another drizzle of rain began to fall, couldn’t get umbrella out in time, ran into attractive guy, nearly got nutella crepe all over him, apologised profusely, realised later I’d talked to him with nutella all over my face… dear, god! Take this as a kind warning; if you get crepe, SIT DOWN and eat it slowly with lots of serviettes! Even if you look like a bit of a loner. Just do it. Take it from me. I am your guinea pig, kind reader, and will share my humiliating experiences just so you don’t make the same mistakes. As Miranda would say, you’re very welcome!)

Yes, so. Hasn’t it been an excellent couple of days! I do love assignments! (Please note the sarcasm!!). Hope your exams are going ridiculously well! I bid you farewell and best of luck with your all night crams and essay writing/crying.

Rant: ended.