I can’t help but feel there’s something a little morbidly foreboding about listening to Mozart’s Requiem on the eve of my first exam. Or maybe it’s just incredibly appropriate. Well, I’ve got work to do and it’s pretty and it’s sophisticated and just maybe a little of Mozart’s creative improvisational genius will rub off onto me so that I can actually have a decent stab at this Consti paper. On the plus side, no one feels like they know what they’re doing. Which is about as close to a comforting thought as I can muster.

Revision has been getting progressively more intense over the last few weeks, although never reaching quite the levels for which I might have hoped. There’s certainly still a lot to get done last minute before each exam. But it’s here now so there’s no looking back.

A few days ago I started working on another illustrated poem in the style you’ll be familiar with from the selection in the Water quarter. It was nice to be creative and actually feel like I’d produced something by the end of the day, rather than the usual feeling at the end of a day’s revision where nothing has been fresh or new and it all feels like running in circles or chasing your own tail. And, despite my best efforts, I haven’t even grown a tail. You’ll see the final results of the poem, The Girl With Very Long Legs, soon. I’m actually quite happy with it now.

The wonderful thing about last-minute revision is that it becomes easy to rule out certain things. For example, there’s no way I’m going to remember how to spell “Ng Yuen Shiu” tomorrow, so why waste time learning that case!? The uncompromising, hard line approach to liberal revision…

And for anyone taking exams at the moment, just remember: it could be worse!