Exam anxiety

I have just settled back into work after a 5 day ‘study break’. This was a totally different study break than any other I have had. In my last post graduate degree I was ‘a machine’; I’d be up at the crack of dawn ready to absorb as much of the law as I could before finally retiring to bed 18 hours later.

Before falling pregnant (and having no idea how long it would take to get that way) I decided, or was coerced into undertaking a further post graduate degree. It is only now that I realise how senseless it was. The law is demanding at the best of times but when I have to deal with it all day and then go home to study it on weekends while trying to fit in naps and bathroom visits, it is outright tiring!

So I had an exam on Tuesday, I spent the 5 days leading up to it in a mix of reading legislation, reading baby books, napping and watching Oprah. This is not my usual study routine…

To top it off, the morning of the exam I left home with an hour to spare and when I was nearly at the exam venue has a sudden realisation ‘I won't be able to last 3 hours without eating – I’ll just pop in to McDonalds for lunch first.’ Again, not my normal exam preparation (let alone eating habits!)…

When it was about half an hour until the start of the exam, I was sitting serenely eating my Big Mac, when I realised I would be late if I didn’t leave then. So I rushed back to the car, zoomed up 20+ levels of parking until finally finding a rooftop one, sprinted through the convention centre (ok, my idea of ‘sprinting’ is quite different now since pregnancy and bear in mind I was carrying piles of books and legislation) and finally made it to my exam with 5 minutes to use the bathroom (what else) before it started.

So, not my ordinary exam venue, pre-reading exercise…

But the good news is that I think the adrenaline from the ‘I’m going to be late’ panic meant that I attacked my exam with vigour that I haven’t experienced since becoming pregnant. I finished it all with a few minutes to spare to read over it, and then returned home to collapse, exhausted into a heap on my couch.