- Phone fully charged – Check.
- Laptop fully charged and plugged in – Check.
- Pen and few back up pens – Check.
- Scientific Calculator (which has somehow got so advanced that I have forgotten the usage but is still there for moral support) – Check.
- A4 Sized Sheets – Check.
- WebCam (do we still call it that?) – Check.
- Network Connection – Check.
- Mind Ready for Taking the Exam Online with your WebCam On and with lukewarm preparation – Ch… No!
After hitting snooze for 2-3 times, I finally woke up early (8.30 AM) today, a Sunday. (I had slept late yesterday). Special day today! I had an exam. Proper exam. Not a certification exam. Real Exam. Life anyways keeps giving shocks regularly but sometimes we want to get jolts ourselves. Some people are adrenaline junkies. The need for speed and adventure keeps them going. Then, there are others who just want the remote and the couch so bad that as soon as they get up from their beds, they want to lie down on the couch for another couple of hours unless someone hits them up with Caffeine. I am in the median zone. I have taken up a Master’s course and today was the first of the final exams of Semester 1.
There’s no rush like the exam rush. The tension, the mystery, the already cut nails for biting, the collywobbles in your gut, the ticking clock, and a general fear of failure, ah Engineering exams, how much I missed you! I have attended several interviews and been in precarious positions earlier too but having an exam for a course you have paid yourself (yes, hello!) is a joy of its own. The rust one develops in the brain by not writing exams for a long time can be removed only taking some challenges once in a while. I had thought that since everyone is working from home with no need to travel, I will get ample time to study so I would be able to clear all exams thrown at me like how one uses (Made in China) mosquito rackets every evening. However, all I have done till now is only scrape through somehow, like using a Mask at a public place.
See I am not talking about Marks or our Education System. They are a different matter altogether but Exams are something of a great leveler. They make one feel that one should be studying than writing this sentence. I mean, they make one feel really small. Then there is endless knowledge and you know only this much and will be able to recall even lesser and write some gibberish eventually. But the adrenaline of an exam is something. One should write them for just getting charged up if one is feeling a bit dull.
(More exams coming up next week.)
Photo by Hello I’m Nik 🎞 on Unsplash
