Feel My Wrath
This is the beginning of the end. Exams have just started, and in two weeks I’ll be officially unemployed. What a great way to kick things off by messing up my first exam.
Revision took longer than expected, as usual. Time was running out and I had to make the choice between doing the problem sets or the past years’ exams. I chose the former, which seemed like the right decision at that time. We only had solutions for the problem sets, and I thought I could understand the material better by attempting them.
As it turned out, this year’s exam was nearly identical to last year’s. They were so similar that I had to check the dates to be sure which exam I was looking at. It’s easy to look back with perfect hindsight and blame myself. Wasn’t it obvious that the professor is going to reuse materials from last year? And didn’t I advise my friends to practice only the past years’ exams if time is running out? There’s an unopened bottle of vodka sitting on top of my bookshelf, and I was tempted to get myself drunk. But I knew better after my recent experience with alcohol. Apparently I go crazy when I’m drunk — very crazy.
Just when I thought things could not be any worse, I woke up this morning only to realise I left my calculator in the exam hall. I had it since my secondary school days, long enough that I’ve changed its battery twice. I’m so used to it that I refused to change my working calculator to a financial one, even though that would complement my studies better than my old scientific calculator. I doubt I can even find the same model on the market now.
I started wondering if losing my calculator made me feel worse than failing my exam. I’m a sentimental guy, and losing a calculator I had for nearly a decade isn’t a trivial matter. But what I do know is that some vodka will be good for me right now.
A crazy Ray brings laughter to the world at the expense of himself. An angry Ray brings laughter to himself at the expense of the world.