Mechanics Massacre.

DISCLAIMER: It’s one thing feeling bad about not doing as well as you thought on an exam, and a whole other thing doubting whether or not you’re passing your national certificate examinations. It’s a little more than pressure, it’s a matter of psychological life and death, an occupational hazard. If you’re not aware of the how much the system affects your future or you’re not from around here long enough to get a whiff of it, I’d suggest you skip the comment box, take your “You’re being a pussy and a drama queen’ and effectively shove it. I, as well as a multitude of Sanaweyya casualties, have just FAILED an exam on our last detrimental year of the fucked up system that has taken education, aptitude and the worth of a person, mashed them together and produced a fucking monster that has zilch to do with either of the aforementioned sugar, spice and everything nice.

I’m sure a lot of you have seen this post coming, because just as I wouldn’t miss a chance to rant about a well-deserved cause on my blog, a chance that doesn’t come by ever so often in this mundane whirlpool that identifies with the more relatable oxymoron of ‘student life’, I equally use this as a sandbag knowing full well that most of you don’t even exist out of my head. This is not really a post as much as it is me using my Maths drafts for catharsis fully believing that it’s a better use of ink and paper judging the mechanics fiasco that took place last morning, one that I’m sure will have engraved itself in my head long after I’m well within my wits to register a lot more important things, like for instance how many spoonfuls of sugar I take in my coffee or my last name.

For those of you who are not as locally grounded as most, checking the news or the hash tag would fill you up on how the mechanics exam caused rallies and acts of rampage in schools everywhere, rendering the more friendly exchange of ‘how’d you do today?’ to ‘Are you passing?’ But let’s not get ahead of ourselves as I give you an impression of how it felt in firsthand experience. Not that you care, we all know that blogs do nothing but send the information out into cyberspace where nobody bothers to pick up the signals with their long term memory antennas.

Sitting there for two hours staring at an advanced Mechanics exam paper, knowing that within its folds lie my future, my options and everything I’ve ever worked for, one that could make or break my career choice and life as I know it really, not sure about one result in the whole goddamn paper, that is within the ones that I’ve actually solved, was nerve-wrecking. I kept it together till the last plotted minute, knowing  for a fact that I’d flunk but not giving myself the excuse of going out without a fight. Leaving the torn down class that goes by the more fancy semantic of an exam hall, feeling like a loser and watching life as I know it getting flushed down a public toilet, I’m surprised by the sight of not one, but each and every student breaking down as soon as they hit the gates. The spectacle, as put by my worrying parents waiting in the car, was described as ‘They’d wait till they hit the gates, wail and pass out, then get shipped into their respective cars, that deserved the title of hearses at that point.’ The more composed of us didn’t pass out or wail, but broke down in hysterical blubber as soon as they set foot in their little portable comfort zones. The feeling of being an absolute failure was elated when I found out that my fellow A students also weren’t sure of one result in their papers, as a matter of fact, most of which didn’t even have time to complete the exam and were pretty sure we’re not passing. The staircase was the hardest to get through, with people passing out and breaking down in every corner, and I was hurriedly ushered out by my mother who came to the rescue when she saw the state of the ones who took, or rather were taken, to an earlier exit.

I am sitting here, with the knowledge of what happened, the fact that the same dude who put the Mechanics exam is the one that put the Differentiation and Integration exam I’m sitting tomorrow, as well as the Algebra and Solid Geometry exam I’m sitting 4 days later, and I’m trying to find a reason to work and coming up with nix. The feeling of failing so drastically as opposed to being an A student all throughout your educational voyage, getting 98% the first year and the silhouette of a 60%, at best, looming on the horizon for the second, seeing your life slip away because some teacher out there was given orders to fuck up the curve so the colleges wouldn’t have to handle an influx of people who’ve worked their fingers to the bone and their parents wallets threadbare into their oh so cherished paternally caring government hands is indescribable. Fair is one thing, this is a whole other thing. This is not a difficult exam that people are whining about, this is an impossible exam that’s not designed for its appointed exam hours or the capabilities of an average student, or an A student, or a fucking student to begin with. The fact that they’d sit there all blue collar and confident claiming that its proportional to the time, work or pressure pulling on its sleeves is outrageous. The fact that they’d gamble our nerves, futures and well being like that is something I don’t even have a word for. Should I be happy that nobody got one question right? Should that be of any consolation? It’s not. This is my work. This is three fucking years worth of work, three years worth of putting everything else on hold and investing 17 hours a day into shit I, as well any other human being living in the 21st century, don’t need to know. This is three years of not having a life. It’s three years worth of anxiety and terror over a future that is hanging by a thread. This is three years of being plugged into a system over which you have no control.

I am sitting here and I am trying to find a fucking reason to keep going. I’m trying to find a reason to work when I know that nothing I do right now is ever going to matter. Hell, even Hogwarts’ sorting hat wouldn’t be able to get me out of this ditch. All is lost, I know it, everybody knows it, and we’re still asked to keep it together and keep working. The patient is dead, but hey, keep resuscitating, keep zapping him and maybe the sheer voltage going through his body will dislodge your sanity enough for our logic to take a comfortable seat.

I have failed an exam in 3rd secondary. Amnesia, lemme see you swing your bat at that.

Fuck the system.