The Eve Before

Current Mood Alert: bored, therefore, chatty

So, it's the eve before the results of my CAE exam are finally published. This fact alone shouldn't be interesting enough to deserve an entry, but seeing that I did the first exam on the 1st of December, and tomorrow will be 25th of January, it feels a bit like going into labour. Actually I had started to believe that the whole point of CAE was just taking the exams, and nothing else, because when someone asked me about the results, my reaction was along te lines of 'what results? I took the exam already.'

I don't think I told anything about my exams, did I? I never do. Ok, I talked about it with my teacher and then a little something with some classmates, but that was it. From Primary to Uni, I've actively avoided the typical chitchat post-exam, with everyone talking about their results and desperately looking for reassurance. There's nothing I can do once the exam is over, so no point in agonising over how different their answers are from mine . "Yeah, because you know you are brilliant and did well, you're not nervous", classmates used to tell me. Nop. It wasn't that. Ok, the fact that I was usually good helped a bit, I suppose. But even when knew I could have done well, I tried not to hear what they were saying about answers. My brain is a very fertile land, so let's avoid trouble.

To the point. My first exam was, as I was saying, on 1st December. The Speaking Paper. I was the only one taking the exam from my evening class, which meant that our lessons weren't exactly exam-orientated. So I tried to work extra hours, and went through almost the whole book on my own. Will, my teacher, was nice enough to say yes to some extra time for me, too, and even if I could have used a bit of practice in speaking, for example, I didn't want to abuse. Abuse more than it was necessary, anyway.

So, on the afternoon of the exam, I googled the address, in Wimbledon, and there I went, -3ºC and all at 5pm. And nervous as hell, saying 'hello' and 'good afternoon' to myself while walking down the street, and thinking that I had lost the little accent I had mastered in months. What can I say, I'm annoying that way.

I found the place -yay- and then I was paired up with a lovely girl from my same school. Actually, five minutes later we were merrily chatting, sharing tips and devising plans for the in-pairs parts.It went well...sort of. I mean, I did well but I failed at the one I knew I was going to fail. And that ruined it for me, because I know I wasn't good.

For the written one, a week later, I met them again, and there we went. Seven in the morning, freezing, and with volcanic magma disguised as coffee searing tongue. The not so cool part was that I was feeling like a rag: 38º of temperature, constant and annoying cough, chills...and deaf as a log, so imagine the Listening part, in a huge room, sound distorted. But I'm nothing if not a challenge-lover, so it wasn't that bad.

Highlights of that day:

- Elderly Woman from Cambridge Uni looking stern and scary and miserable. At one point, I was two fits of cough away from throwing my trachea against the desk, but when I was going to raise my hand, EW reminded us that we were not permitted to use pens, just pencils, in such a stern and angry way that I decided that, whatever the fate of my trachea, I was better off staying where I was.

-Young alternative man having the guts of risking his continuity in the exam, and in life, by making Elderly Woman and her crew wait for ten minutes.

- Wearing my coat while doing the exam.

-Eating Halls Soothers while doing the exams. Every hour (I left my ASDA honey at home in case it wasn't allowed). 

- Banquet with lovely Christine, Lenne, Albane and Julie during the break.

- Bumping of head against toilet wall due to a mixture of genetic lack of balance, lack of proper sleep and drowsiness (aka The Nebula).

- Bumping of head against fellow student while trying to pick my bloody pen and ID from floor (really, I don't know why all my things end up in the floor).

- And this beautiful view (ten times more so in real life):

Sacred Heart Church, Wimbledon.

Ahh, the good old times.

So, while I'm not overly confident, I think I might have passed. The point, however, was not to pass, but how I passed. And I suspect that it wasn't as brilliantly as I wanted.

Or, I might be wrong.  Questions, questions.