Biology and Politics

Tuesday morning, that is yesterday, seems so long ago as to seem like forever. I was paranoid about getting up in the morning and justifiably so, as my phone didn't charge overnight (read, I am a daft cow and forgot to switch it on at the mains) and so didn't make the usual interesting sequence of noises, and I had to rely on my increasingly creaky alarm clock. Thankfully it did go off, and I immediately put Placebo on at full volume to keep myself awake. I made it into school without too much incident, avoided the kitchen because it was full of panicky people, and eventually found myself sitting in the corridor while Helena sat beside me and snarked about module 1.

At nine, I was in my usual place in the cenetenary hall with the yellow lights above and the heaters purring away in the background somewhere. The first paper was module 2, Genes and Genetic Engineering, and I don't think I did well. It's a matter of knowing what they want, and I never do. The questions are often ambiguous and more often than not, only peripherally related to the syllabus, so it's a struggle. I was more than a little paranoid by the time I finished it, and I'd brought in a clear plastic bag full of Malteasers mixed with jelly beans, and the bag was supposed to last me the whole day but I ate the entire thing during that first module.

You don't get a break in between science modules either. You just sit for a couple of minutes while they take the first paper away and bring you the second. Module 2, Physiology and Transport, was the one I was dreading because I'm terrible at Biology and particularly bad at plants. And plants are all that's on it, more or less - xylem and pholem and cohesion-tension theory - with only a little bit on the mammalian heart and some stuff on haemoglobin. One question, about the affinity of oxygen in foetal and maternal haemoglobin, annoyed me no end because firstly I couldn't stop humming that ridiculous song ("Haemoglobin is the key!"), and secondly, they'd spelt foetus as "fetus" and it bugged me. It bugged me no end.

But in conclusion, I would probably say that it was much better than I thought it would be, and it was a pity I couldn't say the same about the genetics but what can you do about it, etc. So I didn't say for lunch, I walked through the village, bought a pasty and went home.

My parents were there. Now, I'm perfectly aware they were only gone two weeks, and they had to come back some time, and wasn't it a coincidence that they should get back during the only time in two weeks that I actually had to be somewhere, but seeing them back was still something of a culture shock. The weird thing was the... well, the distance. It was like some sort of barrier that had been erected while they were gone - like I'd somehow grown up and needed them less, and they were wary of pouncing on me for fear I'd bite. It's hard to explain; anyway, they did seem pleased to see me, and asked how it went, and they even brought goodies. Namely, some Timberland sandals and a top my mother found amusing - "fcuk in las vegas" - which I liked.

They're jet-lagged, of course. Terribly so. So while they spent most of the afternoon asleep, I spent it falling asleep and trying to revise Politics. By six, I was in an increasingly hysterical, tired and paranoid state of mind, made a lot worse by the fact Kate is home from hospital, feeling a lot better, and wants tution again! So I tutored her; taught her how to make quadratics equal nought, how to factorise them, how to say what x equals when there are two solutions, all that kind of thing. I don't know how I did it, because when she left, I threw my files away in despair and gave up.

There were two options from then on. Get a good night's sleep, go into school for lunchtime and don't revise, or don't get a good night's sleep, go into school in the morning and revise. The latter plan prevailed, because I really didn't know anything, and despite the fact I was just about dead from tiredness, I dragged myself into school.

I wasn't the only one. Nichola was there, revising history; Fidan and co. were there, revising mechanics (same time as my exam) and at length, quackaquacka arrived, having been in school for a French listening GCSE.

I spent most of the day with them. The revision wasn't the great success I'd hoped, because I was so tired and so easily distracted, especially as they kept trying to make me quote werewolf legislation at them, and in the end I just started panicking again. It's easy to distract me when I'm panicking - in the end, Miranda and I started attempting to convince Nichola of the Clearly Obvious Nature of the relationship between Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. She (Nichola) doesn't agree; Miranda and I do. The argument had descended into-

"They so are."
"They so are not!"
"Are!"
"Not!"
"Are!"

-when Nichola gave up, turned round in the lunch queue, and said, "Mrs Stubbs! You've read Harry Potter, haven't you? Well..."

Mrs Stubbs, apart from being Helena's mother, is an English Literature teacher. She said it "depends on your interpretation."

I'm sure it does. Yep.

We sat outside in the sun on the benches after lunch, and Nichola sang "Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens..." to me in an attempt to cheer me up. It succeeded to the extent it made me join in singing as I collected my bits and bobs and ambled over to the hall in the sunlight, with Fidan trying to cheer me up by telling me at least I don't do mechanics. This is true, by the way. At least I don't do mechanics.

Just before I went in, I was looking depressed and I'm-going-to-fail, and Mrs Custard stopped and said, "See, I knew you should have done Physics!"

I barely had time to look outraged before it was one o'clock, I was sitting at the front by the clock, and had module 2, Political Parties and Pressure Groups, for company. It was a strange paper. The two parties questions were unusual - Mr Evans later said they were the hardest questions he'd ever seen at AS - and the first was: "The role of Opposition leader is a difficult one. Discuss."

I didn't. I did: "A positive image is more important than coherent ideology in terms of electoral success." I wrote about the rebranding of Labour as New Labour, the weak and divided image of Labour in the eighties and the Conservatives now, and something about the fragmented ideology of the Lib Dems. I quite enjoyed the question; less so the pressure groups one, which was about elected and unelected officials and quite horrible.

Module 3, my eternal bugbear, treated me well. I was quite simply incredibly lucky to get two questions I could answer - one on strengthening the European Parliament, and the other about the decision-making capacity of the British Cabinet. I was lucky. The other questions involved quangos, which I know nothing about.

Cue my emerging into the real world, faintly dazed. I am very, very lucky to have got acceptable marks in January. I'm in the minority of people not doing resits, and so had two-hour exams instead of three-hour ones. I went to the library, mostly to see quackaquacka and Mrs Barry, and while I was there, Mr Evans appeared. He was enthusiastic to hear how it went, so I told him, and he thought the parties questions were very difficult (which makes me wonder - maybe I answered the ideology one all wrong, seeing as I liked it so much). He also mentioned liking my essays. With a little prod from hathy_col, I showed them to him, and he apparently found them amusing, particularly the redress of grievance one.

And with a wave at Miranda - who asked, "You didn't write about werewolf legislation, did you?" - I went home again. My parents are still at work, Pedar's got a clinic, but I asked them both to bring home chocolate if possible.

It's something.

And I have Chemistry tomorrow, but I'm currently so tired that typing this out is proving too much of an effort. I will probably sleep straight through Friday. I've never been this tired without any reason.