Blind To My Mistakes

I've realised that I have a great affinity for making mistakes; all kinds of mistakes. Careless mistakes, stupid mistakes, downright ridiculous mistakes, genuine mistakes...And it annoys me.

I think genuine mistakes are fine, because it's not really like I could have avoided making the mistake if I honestly didn't know what was going on in the first place. But it's the careless, stupid, ridiculously ridiculous mistakes that really get to me.

Sitting in the toilet this morning (for those who wouldn't mind trying, it's one of the most conducive studying environments ever found - but that wasn't why I was on the bowl today), half asleep, it suddenly dawned on me, a highly stupid mistake I made in yesterday's MCQ section of the paper (in addition to many other mistakes, careless or otherwise). Crap, I could've kicked myself AND flushed me down the toilet in that split second that I realised it. Darn, I still feel like caning myself, and will definitely do so if that mark creates the difference between my getting a B and a C or between a C and a D or between a D and an E (notice how A's not even mentioned - you wouldn't dare either if you screwed up your practicals already).

I am amazing. During exams, my mind always seems to draw a clean blank, and I can actually seriously forget everything I've learnt prior to that very minute when I'm staring at the question in front of me and realising that I can't answer it, despite trying very hard to dig deep into the recesses of my not so big brain for that information that I'm so sure I had studied about. Then comes the best part: I make up the facts. I know that just sounds completely ridiculous, because facts can't be made up. Ah, but that's before you heard it from me. I once wrote a Merger and Separation essay, in which I made up almost every single HISTORICAL event, twisting it to my own needs, only to have Miss Tan nearly fail me, in addition to scribbling beside practically every paragraph that I had to "get your facts right". Yes, Miss Tan. I think I need to get my facts right too.

I can't stand how during exams, I keep mixing up, say for example, chlorides and carbonates, soluble and insoluble, how constrict and dilate, contract and relax confuse me, how Chiang, Sun and Mao suddenly all sound the same, and so on, because I'm so sure I know these things. I know I know because I know I've studied (at least some), and what with all my various study methods?

1. Talking out loud to myself, sometimes even getting louder and louder to compete with the surrounding noise.
Pros: It really helps get some of that information into your head - must be something in hearing compared to just looking. And it forces you to quit drifting off into dreamland.
Cons: I usually come down with a sore throat after that.

2. Repeatedly writing the facts in red and purple ink with highly messy handwriting on rough paper.
Pros: It's strangely liberating, scribbling furiously away like that, and sometimes after writing over and over again, you actually drill the facts into your head (though somehow during exams I still end up having to make up some of my own).
Cons: Well, you'll find that you keep having to buy pen refills. Plus you run the risk of daydreaming as you write, so that even though you may appear to be studying very hard, in effect, your mind's drifted off to wonder about what's for dinner or what you're going to do when all the exam torture's over and lots more.

3. Pretend that I've been enlisted for the role of a Chemist (Chemistry), Biologist (Biology), Historian (History), PAP supporter (Social Studies), or maybe just a very intelligent person, or - the best - a teacher, and that I have to memorise my, ahem, lines.
Pros: As strange as this method might seem, it actually works sometimes! I guess it's because it helps you see all the crappy facts as more of a fun thing.
Cons: Firstly, it sucks when you suddenly remember what it really is you're studying for and that the whole acting thing is just a wild figment of your imagination. Or secondly, it can work so well that you start convincing yourself that you're REALLY an intelligent person and so you don't need to study so hard anymore, which results in your promptly throwing down the book and traipsing off to the next room to watch some television. And thirdly, reading out the textbook and notes as if they're lines from a script makes you sound very affected. Plus your family will inadvertently start to think that you're going crazy from all that studying.

So after running all those risks just to ensure that at least a teeny weeny bit of that information is retained for the exams, I see the question, draw a blank and decide in a desperate move, to invent my own information. You don't think it really hurts, until you get your paper back (I'd be the expert in this area). Or otherwise, I see the question, get damn happy because it's like - I know the answer! - but then I either carelessly tick the wrong answer, or tick what I think is the correct answer, only it isn't, because I read the stupid question wrongly.

Geez, am I blur or am I blind?

In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.

Whoever the damn king is, I want his eye.