Its said that the characters, events and other entities in a literary work often stem from real life examples. It is not often, however, that a reader gets an opportunity to be an example. Ladies and gentlemen, lets take a look into Agent M’s life… Another of his autobiographical works… Put your hands together (and gather your slippers and rotten tomatoes) fooooooorrrr Ageeentttt Mmmmm…
And there I was, a blooming idiot who made three huge mistakes, just like that idiot in that idiotic book! Yup. The three mistakes of life… (just before a Psychology exam)
As I returned yet again from my hometown, ol’ Dusty was waiting for me… (Dusty = B’lore) Fresh as a withered onion, I got to work. I swore I would start studying for today’s exam atleast by 11AM yesterday. I cut a 1 off the 11, and changed the A into P. I started at one in the afternoon. I finished off one module of the five. This one also happened to be the shortest, and one which had already been extensively probed in the mid semesters.
In joyful exaltation that I had broken tradition and actually studied, for the next few hours, I concentrated my energies in setting up an Ad Hoc wifi connection within the house, so that we could save Rs 1800 on a second hand wireless router. Mistake number one… I should never have turned on my laptop…
Then, voila, realisation struck. Four modules to go. I was extremely tired. It was 7 pm. Cannot sit up late in the night. I had a coffee, and pressed that small red button labelled PANIC. ‘Help’ was at hand though. One of my ‘sisters’ (yes I have a few many) called up, and requested that I find out from her former boyfriend what to study. Her former boyfriend apparently was very good in the subject concerned. Of course, there was a catch involved. She was trying to tutor one of her friends on the topic, but she being in a different year, was facing problems. So she wanted to know what exactly were the portions, so that she could effectively tutor her pupil.
Anyway, I haplessly ended up subscribing to Mr N, my ‘sister’s former boyfriend. Mr N informed me that he was going to tutor some girl who was weak in the subject, and extended an invitation for me to join. As I had been earlier recommended by my ‘sister’ to accept any opportunity to study with Mr N, I accepted.
As I packed my books, one of my roommate looked, and sneered. Hmmmm…
Mistake number two… I should never have accepted the group study invite.
So what happened? Mr Only-One-Module-Down-Four-More-Tough-Ones-To-Go-me met up with the two of them at a coffee shop in a neighbouring mall. Since the girl concerned, lets call her Ms V, didn’t have a clue of what was what, we decided to start from the first module, which I had already done. As the cosy session continued, somehow I got the feeling that either Mr N was acting his worst, or I was an infinitely better teacher than the supposed Mr N. To keep up my spirits, and myself, I had a few cups of coffee. One cold coffee. One double shot extra strong expresso doppio.
Mistake number three… I never should have had those coffees!
We started at 8. We finished the first module and had a dinner break at 10.20. After dinner, we realised that we simply couldn’t go on. So we split, Mr N and Ms V making plans to meet up early today morning, before the exam. How interesting…
4 modules to go… 3 hours wasted… Tired… Sleepy… Psychology… 1… 2… 3…
The three mistakes of my life.
So I gather my spirits, wash my face, browse the net for tips to stay awake, strip to a bath robe, get a bucket of cold water, put my legs in it, and start studying.
Using all the psychology I could muster, I coaxed and motivated myself into finishing off 3 modules, taking short breaks to wash my face or take a shower, to keep myself awake. I thought I was sleepy. It was 4.10AM. I felt really really sleepy. I was reading the same paragraph over and over again. I had a splitting head ache – perhaps due to the excess caffeine. No use of sitting up. So I hit the sack, setting alarms to wake up at seven.
Surprise surprise. I couldn’t sleep. I was not in the slightest bit sleepy. My eyes were paining and watering. My body was screaming in protest. But eluding me with a malignant sneer, was sleep. I closed my eyes, and pretended to sleep. Soon, I drifted off into a stage beyond consciousness, but nowhere near sleep. I was able to wake up at seven thirty, owing to the fact that I never slept.
I still had that splitting headache. A sour taste in the mouth. To make things worse, I had some weird feeing in the stomach. I had a hangover on caffeine!!!! Not to mention the lack of sleep for the past two days.
Somehow, I managed to rush through the last module. A quick bath later, I was in college, exactly 2 minutes after the bell. Got the paper. It looked easy. Ha! Whom was I kidding! There was so much to write that I could cover Mount Olympus with sheets! And I had a reputation for being slower than a decision by the Indian Supreme Court in writing. As usual, I ended up running through 30 marks worth questions in the last ten minutes.
Hmmm….
Still have the hangover…
I promise -
- Never to experiment with Ad Hoc wifi networking for Internet Sharing when I have 4 more modules to go
- Never to agree for group study
- Never to underestimate caffeine
The three mistakes of my life… (just before the Psycho exam)
UPDATE : 3 months and 2 weeks after this fateful exam. Believe it or not, I got an 80% for it…
