Hello,

My first exam’s tomorrow. It’s a maths resit of a module I probably shouldn’t have done so badly on last year but in that year, I’ve got to the point where I do understand at least 80% of the paper.

Yesterday I had a really productive day – I did three past papers and had an hour of tutoring and I got As on all three of those papers. Today I felt awful – I felt like I was trying to do everything whilst walking through water, like everything was muted and I felt slow and sad and awful so I only got two papers done and I got Bs on both of them.

I only need a C overall, so if I got a B in tomorrow’s exam it would be more than enough to help me towards the grade I need (if I get round to teaching myself the other modules) but I’m still really nervous.

I get, what I call, ‘subconscious nerves’ in that my body gets really stressed out and actually physically ill but in my head I really don’t care and I know there’s nothing to be nervous about. Usually my nerves take the form of stomach problems and my body rejects certain foods and I get a lot of headaches but recently I’ve started feeling stress in a different way.

I can’t remember if it was before or after Christmas, I went through some pain with my left shoulder. I assumed it was a dance thing and it would wear off in a few days but the pain spread up my neck, into my chest and to my ribs. It was agony – I was sat in maths just crying and it wasn’t about maths, for once. I went to the doctors that night and she said it was just stress and tension and I needed to take some paracetamol.

Similarly this morning I woke up with an aching, muscular pain on the right side of my neck – again I assumed it was a dance thing or I slept funny but the pain persisted, it spread a little down my shoulder and it’s making my wrist feel really tense but in my head I feel okay – that’s what I mean by subconscious nerves.

Luckily I’m left handed, so if my right wrist persists to be a little shit then it doesn’t matter too much. When I get this exam out the way, I’ve got to actually start revising properly for my seven other exams and practise for my tap exam next Friday.

I’m terrified, I’m actually really worried about these exams because while people keep saying ‘they’re not the end of the world’ and ‘not everyone has A Levels – you’ll be okay!’ but I want these A Levels, and my standards are the hardest ones to live up to.

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx




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