Gabriella Sloss

Particularly when it’s a reasonably cool day, and you ain’t got nothing to do but sit in the sun, write songs and watch crappy tv. Perfect.

You’re revising Jay Z lyrics, and hoping that your examiner will accept him as a critic. Ohhh, I don’t want to do this exam. I really don’t. If I could just have Bernard’s watch, and stop time, that would be great: A) I could stop time and revise loads and not have to worry about the looming TIME LIMIT I have. B) I could totally stop time in the exam, and take out my notes and just write whatever I wanted. C) I could maybe just live in stopped time and never leave.

And I’m sat inside revising Edgar Allan Poe. At least it’s National Goth Day, so in a way…I’m sort of doing my bit to celebrate it. But still. I would much rather be on the beach with my friends, where I know they all are. I would much rather be dipping my toes in the ocean, and drinking a cocktail whilst reading…hey, I don’t know, Jack Kerouac or something. Alas, I’m stuck in, reading about miserable dark rooms and tell-tale hearts. God, Poe, couldn’t you at least write something a little cheery?

But seriously…my reading time would be cut a WHOLE lot shorter if he just used the word “people” instead of listing every job, race, age, sex, sexuality there ever was in the history of time. Just say “people”, Walt. People will get that you’re going on about democracy. Then I think your poem would whittle down to a nice three pages I could enjoy nicely. As opposed to the FIFTY I have to read. I’m on a fricking time limit here… See how I did that? Straight to the point. I didn’t list everything ever. Take THAT Whitman.

I have bitten my nails down to the cuticles, I have smoked an unholy amount of cigarettes, and I have sang my heart out in an attempt to slow down my (what can only be described as) SKY-HIGH blood pressure. That, and various medical substances, such as Proponolol and herbal tea. I have read through my notes more times than I care to mention; there is nothing more I can do, I have learnt all I can possibly learn about stratification, egalitarianism, difference principles, duties to aid, and moral sainthood. I am shaking like a fricking leaf and I can’t seem to stop. I believe it was TUMIN that criticised Davis and Moore for saying that education/training is a “sacrifice” people make in order to get the most functionally important jobs and gain higher prestige and esteem. TUMIN who said that education is not at all a sacrifice, and that the money earned from the positions achieved through said education/training far surpasses the total money earned from positions that don’t require education/training. It was also TUMIN that stated that education was a psychological and spiritual reward. WELL, let me tell YOU, Mr. TUMIN; that I DO consider my education a “sacrifice”. Maybe not a stupid money sacrifice, but certainly a psychological (and blood pressure) one. So put that in your pipe and smoke it. I would just like to point out that before university, exams never reduced me into the nervous wreck that I have now become. I can only apologise. But I won’t. I’m just going to say that this entire episode has resulted from the EVIL that is an unequal society. Because…maybe if we didn’t have exams, we could just learn the stuff and feel enlightened and educated. But because stratrification exists as a system in society, we need exams to allocate people with certain degree levels which will entitle them to more functionally important roles in society…thus a high salary, THUS a position, THUS prestige and esteem so that we can reach the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and reach self-actualisation. WELL. You know what? After these exams, I fully intend to find an island whereby straification is BANNED. BANNED. Because it reduces people into bumbling wrecks who can’t coherently discuss philosophy. THE END.

So I just tried to do some of the yoga exercises the doctor gave me to do today after my little no-exam day. And lifted my leg too suddenly and fell off my bed. Today is officially the worst day ever.

Going to my exam. Passing out. Punching a member of estate patrol, and being taken to the health centre because I appear to have lost the ability to breathe. WHY. GOD WHY. But, since I’ve been given this pill that I’m pretty sure they gave Ross Gellar in Friends (“I don’t care about my sandwich anymore), I’m trying to sort of the positives. And the only positive I can muster is that I know that, should I ever wake up to find an unknown man hovering over me again, I can punch like a pro.

Some people are trying to have a exam-induced nervous breakdown over here. You want to keep your joyful singing down to a low? Thanks.

And I’m sharing it with you guys, because I just posted a really pathetic ramble. You know the really lame song “Thank You” by Dido? Well, straight after I posted that whiny-bitch post, the lyric “and then you call me, and it’s not so bad” suddenly became so relevant. So this has basically been an…aww I’m a lucky girl really post.

I am lying in my bed, crying whilst watching Firefly. Thinking about when I fail my exams, I will probably end up working at a post office, officially going postal and ending up at a mental institution because I believe I’m a higher being or something. Oh god. This hasn’t been an attention-seeking post. This has been a…oh wow this will be my life kind of post.