I Failed

The test was awful. I got maybe four hours of sleep each of the nights preceding the exam, and was studying for many of the hours between. I was in a fatigued, anxious daze. I studied from 2 AM to a couple hours before the exam at 9 AM, and the exam was so taxing, and I so hopeless, that I spent much of the last portion focusing on just staying awake enough to read the question and pick some answer that somehow reverberated with it in my mind. I debated walking out, considering what a waste it felt like.

The next day, all of the friends I waited with at the airport got an email telling them that they had failed. I received no email. Delayed flight meant a free night at the airport for a few hours, then an early flight the next day. 

Tired, hungry, suddenly bereft of the studying that had constantly occupied my mind for the past few months, I did not know what to do with myself. So I drank and watched the first Lord of the Rings movie. Hungover, I had lunch with family the next day. They had me talk through the hypothetical situation of having actually passed this exam. This, by the way, is the worst thing to do if you do not yet know.

Despite my reservations, hope surged in me a little, even as reasoning tried to squash it. This resulted in troubled, anxious sleep and fitful dreams. I awoke to a memory of checking my email and finding a passing grade. Wondering if this was dream or reality, I checked my email to find my confidence quickly smothered and brushed aside. The email displays quite clearly the word "FAILED" in all caps, so there's no moment of uncertainty.

I sleep till the afternoon and then force myself to go get food, because my intake is down to one meal per day. After hitting up some Pokemon gyms and catching/hatching some new ones (holiday Pikachu), I end up back at home for awhile. And my mom asks how I'm doing, and I reply "eh". Then she says, without any thought as to how cruel such a statement would be, "You should speak more positively, like Trump. Look where it got him." And the empty vacuum of space that anxiety was beginning to vacate suddenly filled up with our good friend anxiety. Not only that, but I had to justify to my mom how I can speak realistically (quite negatively) and still find success. She countered by telling me that she had Bible verses to justify her argument. I quoted from Genesis on the story of Abraham's belief in hope that goes against reason, despite how negatively he and his wife sometimes spoke of the realistic possibilities. She strongly disagreed with me and all I could tell her was that I failed miserably every time I tried speaking positively about practical things when I didn't have real proof. False hope is something I very much despise.

So it's been a rough week. Well, a rough semester. My mom consistently ignores it when I tell her what the actual issue is, and she points out something far more minute as being the underlying problem. Only a few more weeks of dealing with her though. Then I move.

However, my time on the island had its pleasant moments. I got to be around like-minded people again. All scientists, all very intelligent, and, to my knowledge, nearly all of them are first-generation immigrants. A friend of mine from Pakistan (who is not Muslim, by the way) is worried about his visa status in the future. Because, of course, our demagogue president-elect has had only one consistent promise in his campaign, and that is to get rid of these immigrants from Middle Eastern countries.

The Time Has Come

I leave for the airport in an hour. Since I never trust anything, I'll likely arrive about an hour and a half early with TSA precheck and only carry-on luggage. Then, after some Pokemon Go, I'll fly to Miami, and then to St Kitts. The next day, I'll take a ferry to Nevis. The following day, I'll take a test that I am not confident about which will decide whether I remain in purgatory or move on to the next of a great many steps toward becoming a doctor.

And after that test, freedom. Straight to the ferry and to the beach on St Kitts. Maybe get a $50 beach massage. Because for several days, I won't know whether I passed. That means no obligation to study, no guilt for any of that. And no Trump supporters either. Then on Friday, I'll leisurely fly back to the States, drinking merrily along the way.

I've felt so anxious this semester. First there was construction in the house so I couldn't even access my room, then my mom's divorce became slightly more complicated, which made her much more flustered, then my dad planning his remarriage, then my sister's (who has very real undiagnosed psychiatric issues) boyfriend took his own life with her in the apartment, and throughout all of it, a pro-Trump family and church as I sit here trying to focus. I was driven to drink again in order to relieve anxiety, which clung like the depression did back when I withdrew from a class. These distractions felt constant and pressing, like trying to walk through a thick array of spreading branches. I'm not great at this as it is, so it has seemed daunting.

But I finally let myself think about the test itself the other day. I remembered how the last time I took the comp, I mistook the time remaining for one section of the test as being the time remaining for the entire test (the number of questions for the total exam was placed next to the timer, which still seems stupid). So I sped through the first section without going back to review answers. Since I now understand that mistake, it feels like a leg up, even if the reality is that I only have even footing.

I will likely fail this test and have to retake it again in April. But I've got a study program lined up after the new year, during which time I get to live in my own apartment for two months. And before that, I plan to have fun with good people who, like me, are struggling in this world. I hope the next season is more kind.

A Mockery

Confidence is going back and forth. Mostly back. But I think I do better on practice tests when I'm not already convinced that I've failed it. This phenomenon has always affected others, but never me. This is disconcerting. I had a dream the other night in which I took this exam, but the test was just made up of tweets, with each answer choice being another stupid tweet. The whole thing was a joke, a mockery, and the proctors knew it, though we still had to go through with it.

And though I've always felt like my life was a joke, the effect of this election on my family and church and core values seems to make the joke a bit more cruel rather than playful. And when you add in the hopelessness with which I study... Well, it's not easy to keep this chin up.

I never thought I would feel worse than I did on the island, but living at home during the election was at least a close second. Complete dismissal of facts as hopes are placed in a walking definition of a demagogue...