2 paper, 5 days, not half way yet

If the first two papers are anything to go by, the next one and a half weeks don't look good at all. There seems to be a recurring theme this year in subjects that apparently have little to do with each other i.e. a lack of continuity. This year's papers are nothing like the year before or the year before that, and I was lulled halfway into a state of security by the patterns of questions that ran from 2002 through to 2005. But not this year. Oh no.

Godwin's prediction that he'll have plenty of time in today's paper on account of not knowing enough to stay busy writing answers came true for me. I spent the first 2 hours making up explanations for concepts that I had filed under "Because the lecturer said so" and the last hour worrying about the common sense or lack thereof in my haphazardly spun tales. In the local lingo, I was trying to 'smoke' my way through the paper praying that it wouldn't later be picked out and awarded for sheer stupidity by course's lecturer who, I swear, pleasures in memorising what unfortunate students have offered by way of answers and then using them as very effective teaching examples in his classes. It's always entertaining when it's someone else's mistake.

But the day didn't end all bad. Lester seems to have become Godwin's personal pep squad because the poor guy's taken a beating after this week and isn't accustomed to coming out of an exam feeling like the paper completely bombed, unlike me. So we went out for dinner - which was such a good break. Weng came down and although he's physically here, the rest of him has been swallowed by Garth Nix and his necromantic fantasies - he hasn't put the book down since getting here. I also got Cheryl's mail - the pencil survived (it's so hard to find a good mechanical pencil nowadays) and arrived with a note asking me to bring it home safely because it's only a temporary loan, and a disc with some video clips from church and six episodes of Prison Break.
Thanks to the genius of modern technology, I could share in a 90degree-turned view of Cheryl's baptism, and she's filled my dinner times with hope.