It's the final countdown

Tomorrow, I have my penultimate final. As ever, I'm unprepared! So far, these exams have gone by in a blur but these last two are beginning to drag as everyone around me seems to be finishing. There are carnations, confetti and cries of joy all over college and it's becoming harder to keep my focus. I don't have the same determination I did at the start of this (near three week long!) process and am not really putting my heart into these last exams. I think my slight apathy is exacerbated by my worry about what I've done so far plus thoughts for next week with lots to organise and lots going on. I should be focused on my last two papers. Instead I'm thinking: when will I have time to get ready, when will I pack, will I be able to fit this event in; have I made the right decision to sign up for this, did I remember to book that train...

I think it's obvious that I need to breathe.
Then focus. Two more days. Less than forty eight hours. If I've made it through four years of trials and tribulations I sure can't let this last couple of days drag me down. However it's gone so far, I have the decision about how to act on these two, even if it's only a desperate decision to hurl everything I've got. Four and a half more hours in my exam hall and I'm finished.

Time for some tea, me thinks.

Miniature prosecco and absolute joy!

I won't beat around the bush: finals may be boring but finalists are more so. It may sound callous, it may sound unsympathetic - actually, it is. This term has, thus far, been intolerably dull as I am living in the strange twilight zone of a third year sans examens. All my friends have been following the French dictum of 'metro, boulot, dodo' (tube, work, sleep) except there isn't even the hint of 'metro' to ease the tedium of constant revision, just the quick walk to and from the library. Not only is summer term distinctly less fun without friends to muck around with, it is disconcerting to view veritable spectres of your future self, worn down by the stresses and strains of finals revision. The finals fear seems to be contagious for I feel a little apprehensive about my own. Yep, I'm actually nervous about those tests, you know, the ones a year from now.

However, today, the first of my friends completed their final final (if that makes any sense!) and I couldn't have been more pleased for her ... as well as a little gleeful for myself! After running around like a headless chicken trying to find a suitably hysterical card (merci, Edward Monkton) and a nice miniature bottle of rose prosecco (merci, Hotel Chocolat), I dashed over to the exam schools to greet mon amie (this post is becoming tres francais, n'est-ce pas?)

It soon became painfully clear that I needed to up my game. Cards and prosecco were clearly not enough. There were inflatable magnums of champagne, garlands of kaleidoscopic colours, vuvuzellas (no, I'm not sure how this instrument, which quite frankly sounds like a bee breaking wind, adds to the celebrations either), huge bouquets of flowers, confetti, silly string...  The list goes on. There were also covert tins of baked beans, bags of flour and boxes of eggs for the inevitable trashing (essentially where you besiege your friend with any edible substance to hand; the more disgusting, the better). However, being the goodie-two-shoes that I am, throwing food was clearly not an option. However, I refuse to be upstaged and so next time will be bringing all of the above AND a bubble blowing machine or something equally spectacular.