I was surprised during one of our review classes upon returning to Cebu that it was to be our last session. I had expected that, when it seemed that so much topics were still left undiscussed, classes would last until the last week of May. However, our classes ended that day, sometime during the second week, and what followed are days when they would make machines out of us to check the accumulated papers that once occupied a significant space in their offices. Although slightly disappointed that I would no longer enjoy the company of one of the female reviewers, I had decided not to attend the checking and endeavoured instead to finish the review by myself and at my own pace.

And so it was, in keeping to my previous resolution, that I have spent the following days (most of it anyway) inside a study center desperately cramming (it was cramming in every sense) all the knowledge I have learned for four years in college, all of which I have quickly forgotten in a year. Interspersed, of course, with occasional activities of leisure: an hour or two of internet surfing every afternoon, gym every other day, and old books on Sundays. Next week, it will shrink to just going to the gym, because I'm beginning to be alarmed at how much I still need to read for the Board examination which is terrifyingly just two weeks from now. Holy crap!

Last year, when I was in the same state of pre-examination anxiety, although I have thought of the possibility, I don't think I have ever really believed that I was going to fail. This time it's different for I had begun the review with uncertainty and with so little preparation. Even now, I doubt that I am studying in a one hundred percent efficiency, for my motivation at studying arises solely from fear of failing and not from passion of passing. Besides, three months are just not enough, not when one starts from nothing. Friends disagree, wrongfully thinking that I am intelligent, which I find rather amusing - for they don't seem to notice that I only pretend to be one. I wish now though, with utmost sincerity, that my friends were right.