
Latimer: Recently I found myself facing exams again. The sort of nauseating exams that force you into ‘study mode’ – a mode that no one, no one, wants to be in. It’s the mode that makes your heart recoil in your chest shrieking – ‘Dear god no! I don’t want to go back into the box!’
In short, I don’t like exams, but my predominant feeling towards them is always fear – abject fear.
When I study, and I remember Ridley saying the same thing, I get lots of ideas – I imagine a lot of things, totally unrelated to the exam. I think about cartoons, pictures I could draw, holidays I could go on, holiday’s I’ve been on… that bag of chips I had when I went to London when I was seven, and so on. Basically anything and everything except the dark tunnel ahead of me!
There comes a point in the study fever where I’m pulling out post-it notes and jotting down random plot holes in books we’ve written and sketching little cartoons of pictures I should draw; and then I’m surrounded my post-its and getting annoyed with myself for lack of focus.
As the years go on I’ve noticed how, I just ain’t as good at studying as I used to be. I looked back at my former selves (who were also shrieking at themselves for lack of focus) and I think, ‘wow, you were good once… once – now get back to work!’
Well thankfully the dark cloud of exams has finally lifted – leaving me looking forward to a holiday and putting all those random fever-induced sketches together into a cartoon summing up my experience…
Yup, studying sucks!!
I’m glad you got off the hook of the slobbering exams monster and survived, Latimer! – Thank you for transforming those woes into a happy read!
Much love to you and Ridley,
Steffi