😭 More than an exam, I went to war.

By OctoSpacc

- 7 minutes read - 1286 words

Caution

The content of this page has been entirely machine-translated into English, from Italiano. Therefore, it might contain any kind of errors.

As the title suggests, this was the poetic thought dispensed by my mother today, after I returned home in the afternoon with a psyche > completely obliterated, unrecognizable.

Until 30 minutes before, good maremma, I just wanted to explode. Be careful, though: not for the exam itself (the last in a series of extra-curricular ones, precisely), very simple for me, which I don't care about except the certification!< a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn1">1 Something else happened.

Let's go back

When I went through the first sessions two years ago, everything went very smoothly, almost in the name of chilling: those were still the times of anti-COVID restrictions, and those 2 exams that I faced at school they were in a classroom which was however not very crowded.

This year, however, crap. I took the card without repeating anything, so my parents didn't waste money on that matter, but the experience was terrifying.
The class at these rounds was always packed, and this very thing ended up being a problem for my soul.
I don't think I deserve all this...

There are problems in the air

Last month I took 2 tests out of the 3 I was missing, and already nothing went smoothly at all:

  1. My professor (project contact) hadn't told me that I should have received a private link in the email address of the school domain to create an account on the online exam platform... Too bad that access I only have it at the post office on Puppy Linux thumb drive and on the tablet, and I can't access anywhere else2. Result: I had to rush home to get the tablet and go back to school... Luckily I live nearby.

  2. The testing platform totally broke when I finished one of the exams (not without difficulty, some questions were [glitchate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitch#Computerglitch)_ !): as soon as I started the second one, the system said that I had run out of time, and closed the test I had just started in my face... The prof. he had to waste time calling support to explain the matter, and after quite a mess the exam was reset as not taken.

Between both things, then, a good amount of time was lost. And if it hadn't been like this, maybe I would have managed to finish all the exams that day.

The present

Let's go back to today.
Once the hassle of waiting was over (not too problematic, thanks to the rectangle of plastic, glass, metal, with Internet connection, and pocket book, which I also always carry around), due to the fact that all the stations were occupied initially, start.
...But I had never done it!

My first few minutes go fine, until even a good selection (random, or did destiny choose them carefully?) of monkeys, who from the rows behind everything were babbling with those who (I imagine in confidence) had not yet finished, at an exaggerated volume and in contemporary.
Here, now, slowly, the blood starts to boil in my body, as if it were a coffee pot, because with that mess I can't read > half of a question without getting totally distracted. Even having earphones in my ears (but detached) didn't attenuate the noise enough. Finish the exam like that? Impossible.

I tried

Before it was too late, I tried to call the teacher — who, damn the extreme, was quite distracted , because another person at that moment had the same glitch as my previous time (and here I have to: what a shitty backend this platform has, throw it away and rewrite it from scratch, please!! !).
I wanted to kindly tell him to keep all those who had no right to speak in silence, and after a few minutes (to his credit, of his own accord, a moment before he heard me ) blathered something (unconvincing) to tell the audience to calm down. The audience did not calm down, and the prof. he was going crazy due to the general problems, unfortunately, so he could pay little attention to me.

The last time there was less mess. Perhaps because there were fewer wrong individuals, perhaps because I was at the PC in the far corner of the room (which today was not turned on), perhaps because, given that there was an external commissioner, the rules could only be violated without making any noise. I don't know.

I even decide to call my father on the phone, upon arriving here, to tell him to call the professor on the phone; maybe this time around he can understand. In fact, this time the call for silence was more convincing. Was it?

A disaster

But, by now, too late anyway: my tension has risen too much, I can't regain a minimum of concentration, forcing myself, after perhaps a good 21 months in which I was able to do without it, scratching myself to convert a minimal part of the mental load (which requires major mental energies to be managed, the same ones that I needed at that moment to complete my session) into skin burning (which, to a certain level, is managed by the brain in the background). What a drag.

I've already done the damage, alas and what the fuck, and it seemed that everything was slowly calming down and concentration could return... but instead No. The call of the prof. However, it was too soft and did not stop the bad behavior of that part of the other students, it just put them on hold a bit.

The real solution

Well, at this point I simply feel like throwing a fist on the desk and "screaming" (not that I know how to do it, but the fist just makes up for the this is useful; I unconsciously learned from another professor of mine) to be silent, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to accomplish anything, and... it worked< /strong>. Oh?...
Yes, that's all. I can't say anything else about this moment, it immediately crystallized into goodness. From there, until I finished and was able to leave, not a fly flew again.

At that point, unfortunately, I had accumulated the irritation anyway, and it took me hours and hours and hours > to dispose of it, between doing various random things and writing this article.
The only thing I can logically regret is not having made that bench resonate a few precious minutes before seriously reaching the limit, given that gentle methods didn't work. Unfortunately or fortunately, damn, it's not a reflex that arises in me too often; only when I am already over that limit, and perhaps I have already committed other avoidable damage.

And yet, that doubt still remains: but what have I done that was so bad in the world to deserve these things? And let's understand...

🏷️ Notes and References

  1. The certification... oh God, even this last one, not that I care personally: on my deathbed I don't strong> I will certainly be counting the cards that I could have but didn't want to get; mainly my parents convinced me, so whatever. (If even this were to expire before it can be seriously useful for anything, I'll be seriously pissed off, but never mind...) < a href="#fnref1">↩

  2. It's Google's fault (GSuite, shit), the school network is not recognized as trustworthy and doesn't let me log in. That day I couldn't even log in from my smartphone by connecting to my home VPN, for some reason! I explained the general problem better in my article on the Puppy flash drive, however, so I'll refer you there for those who are interested. ↩