So I took a couple of days away from writing, as you can tell. Some of it was because I had exams, but a few days at the end of that was because of the fact that I had no desire to write. In fact, I had very little desire to do anything except sleep and recover before I had to fly to Bombay. At the moment, I’m on my plane to Bombay, so I’m literally writing this when I’m in the sky. I think there’s a fair amount to be said from my last 15 or so days, so I’m going to post a lot today. Be prepared for email notifications and a lot of catch up reading about my life.
I know I said I loved exam time because I could plop onto my bed to catch a quick nap or head to sleep whenever I wanted. But, the caveat here is that it’s very unlikely that that actually happens – largely because I’m either too stressed out during exams to think about sleeping, or I grossly underestimate how much portions I have – planning my entire study schedule horribly, or, the worst, I overestimate how difficult what I have to study actually is – which means I’m constantly reading and re-reading, even though that isn’t really going to help my brain retain information.
My study methods since I’ve come to University haven’t changed too much since I was in school. I still need to write everything out atleast twice in order to know it and understand what it’s actually about. But I definitely need to write everything and say everything a good 10 times before it’s in my brain in the rote manner I’m expected to remember everything at the University level. That takes time, man.
Hence, I don’t sleep much during exams. And worse, I sleep at the weirdest hours depending on when my exam actually is. Therefore, considering I had morning exams this time, between 10AM and 1PM, I trained my body to sleep from 2PM to 7PM. And then survive overnight without much sleep.
A lot of this was thanks to the efforts of my friends in Boston, who called up and texted through the night, even when they were at work, just to ensure I was awake. One of them called me 5 times because I had accidentally dozed off for a power nap before an exam I was most stressed for.
My biggest fear during exam time is oversleeping, so this seemed like the best way not to.
It was a stupid idea. I need more sleep, especially during exam time. I’m surprised four years hasn’t taught me that also. I’m probably going to sleep more next semester and see if my confidence levels remain intact.
On the flipside.
Exams were good-ish. I did not cry, which I think is a small accomplishment worth celebrating. I didn’t freak out too much also because I was awake and re-reading information a lot. And the best part, I think, is that I wrote an answer that I could write in 3 sentences in 8 pages. That, I believe, is the true test of being a Law student in India.
To say the least, I believe I passed that test atleast. We’ll wait for results to figure out the rest.
The air hostess has now put water into masala cuppa Maggi. The flight is now smelling WAY better than it was 7 minutes ago, when I started typing this out.
Tejas Rao 