Breaking Point!

Today has been hectic to say the least. In school, the option I had taken for Higher Music was Sound Engineering. Basically what I had to do was record people playing instruments to build up two contrasting, existing songs, much like a band would do in studio recording an album. The songs I chose to do were Song 2 by Blur (woo hoo!) and Vince the Loveable Stoner by The Fratellis (tune!). If anybody reading this knows me pretty well, you will know that as always, I left it until the very last minute to get it completely finished. I wont go into the mind-numbing details about my crucifixion of a day, but needless to say I did not have lunch, I missed every single class in favour of music, and I never want to look at ProTools again.

All of this led me to think of the amount and effects of pressure on teenagers. My Mum said to me once that it is so unfair that at such a young stage in my life - (I'll say "our" to relate this to teenagers, I know some people may read this who are older but bear with me) - our lives, the choices and work we commit to basically decide which direction we take. We have so much else going on! Hormones, friends, girl/boyfriends, development, individualising (NOT trying to be indie. Eugh.) ourselves and figuring out who we "really" are... It is absolutely crazy! I agree with my Mum, it isn't fair at all that at this stage we are thrown into the deep end and told to swim. Of course we are (usually) given all the help we can get, but we're teenagers! On the whole, we can be lazy, uncommitted, easily distracted, frustrated... And that's on a good day! We all have the absolute potential to do brilliant, and that's not a joke, or just something people say to kid us on; we do!

In my prelim exams (exams you do to fall back on in the event you miss your finals), I was really happy with the results that I got on a whole. I got four A's (English, Chemistry, Music, Modern Studies), and one D (a fail for Maths). Maths was my first prelim and in true arrogant and lackadaisical (brilliant word) style, I didn't study. What followed was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre of exams. I did not have a clue. To put it bluntly, I shat myself. After that I made far more of an effort, and managed to salvage the rest of my exam period. That just told me that all people need who decide they aren't going to do well is a kick up the arse. There are two kinds of people under pressure. Those who crumble and those who don't. In those prelims, I managed not to crumble, but I saw plenty of people who did. They found the first exam hard and immediately decided it wasn't worth the effort for the rest. That's the wrong way to go about it. A bit of elbow grease and a migraine or two and anyone's grade can go up!

I'm going to keep this short today to be honest. I am knackered. Just a message to everyone doing their exams at the same time as me. Keep your head up. You might think you know literally fuck all, and trust me so do I, but the way that will be effective for you is if you put yourself under as much pressure as possible outside the exam (no, listen!) and then in the exam you will feel a wee bit more relaxed. Don't sit and copy out notes on your own terms all the time; get a stopwatch going and do a Past Paper or an Essay! Stop when you're supposed to and if you fall short do it again! We have like a month left. A month of your life gone. If you live for another 65 years you will have 780 more. Go for it and give the colleges, universities and workplaces something to look forward to! Gay rant over, I'm sorry for trying to sound like a motivational speaker, but I don't know... I guess theres a soft part of me that hates seeing people disappointed. The worst feeling in the world isn't any physical pain, it isn't anything like that, it's regret and knowing you could have done better. At least it is for me. I'm going to KO on my bed now. Bye.