Wait, are you serious? Under two weeks left, is that what it’s come to?
What happened to my majestic plans to go over every functional equation I failed on, ever? Or to go through a super-intense geometry-immersion period and actually try to develop some of that crazy “intuition” thing? And I have finals coming up too! I just finished a ludicrous deadline-extended geography project that I am absolutely confident is the crappiest paper of my entire school career so far! And despite a semester of (slacking) classes, my Spanish is still only barely at a usable level! Exclamation marks!
Don’t panic… let’s focus on the positive. I am absolutely prepared with my stationery. I bought three spanking new 0.4mm pens that say “Can write for 1000 meters!” because all of my current ones are annoyingly thick and constantly having almost-but-not-quite run out, plus three new mechanical pencils and enough matching 2B lead to last me through college. All the pencils and lead are Pentel. I haven’t done any research, so if something terrible happens in Argentina I know what company to blame, and I am writing it here so I won’t confuse the brands. Also, in view of what happened to SCH’s carry-on baggage last year (luckily there was no geo on Day 1), I got an extra compass I hope won’t be needed.
While we’re listing all the stuff I have gotten ready:
- instant noodles, just in case the cuisine halfway across the globe proves to be hostile, which, by Murphy, it will
- chocolate, for the calories, also known as our last line of protection from hypothermia
- not-really-chocolate-flavored nutrition in a can
- oodles of gum, to clean my teeth and maybe keep me awake and busy when needed
- an eye-mask and a cute inflatable neck-cushion, to let me sleep when needed despite being in an awkward position, which is going to be way too often
- face masks, tissue, alcoholic sanitizer, a new toothbrush… the whole paranoid cleanliness brigade, anything to preserve my vulnerable body, as usual
- new neon-yellow-green shoes, because the old ones happen to be near demise.
Well, one aspect covered.
But of course physical commodities only get one so far… the environment and time difference are going to be monsters as well. A difference of eleven hours!?!? A crazy temperature range of -1 to 21 degrees Celsius? Maybe I should be more thankful for our warm temperate climate over here. But I’m still anchored to Taiwan’s time, not only due to the finals, but also that repeatedly-delayed musical performance on Thursday morning. Seriously, guys: this leaves me just over a week to adjust. Two hours a day. That’s inhuman by normal standards, and I still have chemo to make me persistently sluggish and unresponsive, including right now. Derp.
I’d hope for two combinatorics problems this year, but somehow given the score distributions these last two years I have a feeling that wouldn’t actually be the best thing to wish for. Regardless, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.
Let the battle commence! And then let me enjoy some lazy summertime.
Two weeks.