The Board examination has come and gone. I write now three days after its completion for I have not the desire to write before, during, or immediately after- for my mind has, for three grueling months of study and sequestration, has exhausted nearly all of its finite energy, desiring nothing less than a night of uninterrupted repose. I shall narrate what has transpired:

Jun 9. There was some confusion, a day before the said examination, when I visited the local office of the PRC in the morning, as to why I was not on any of the listings posted. This brought me severe apprehension for, although I deem it impossible, the thought of being denied the examination (perhaps on some foolish technical grounds, whatever it may be) is beginning to creep into my mind. Patience, however, is indeed a virtue for when I came back in the afternoon, they had posted the entirety of the listings, which included therein my name. Sigh.

June 10. I was assigned to be in the University of Cebu Main, which was located not far from where I live, and so I walked the entire way. After climbing six flights of stairs and searching through mazes of halls, I found my room. It was smaller than last year's, but sufficiently airy. At the start of the first examination, I realized that I had not taken my breakfast, and so went through the first one hundred questions agonizingly with an aching tummy. I was surprised though that after lunch, unlike last year, I was not attacked by the usual after-meal somnolence (what they termed as 'sakit sa baboy') and finished the entirety of that day's questions with unimpaired concentration.

June 11. I started the second day of the examination with sufficient rest and food, so that the day went rather quickly. There were some (as there always are, apparently) who finished oh so early, going through two remaining tests in only an hour each and seemingly with relative ease. I have been told by so many CI's in the past to ignore them for they tend to make one lose his nerves. A gentleman, who seemed to be in his early thirties, always finishes ahead of everyone, and in his face I see the look of sheer confidence, with a somewhat aloof grin that I immediately despised. My CIs were right for it took a moment get my mind out of the man's irritating countenance and regain my concentration. After the finality of the examination, I could not wait to get home and half-ran my way back to my boarding house, in white uniform and all, under the searing afternoon sun.

I felt relieved, however, that the Board examination is finally behind me, and one that I hope would not have to go through ever again. All there is left to do now is to wait for the result. I have grown to hate waiting, especially when it is something as important as this, for it would mean that I would be putting myself in a state of anxiety and suspense for weeks to come. I thought it best to put it out of my mind, and so I spend my time reading or playing computer games. However, time is of the essence, I am getting old, and I must advance forth with haste. Thus, I am at present preparing for another review: the IELTS examination at the end of this month, hoping that I would be adequately ready by then. For this I am glad, for it gives me purpose for the moment and would ease the strain on my patience.

No Surprises
by Radiohead

A heart that's full up like a landfill
A job that slowly kills you
Bruises that won't heal
You look so tired and unhappy
Bring down the government
They don't, they don't speak for us
I'll take a quiet life
A handshake of carbon monoxide

No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
Silent, silent

This is my final fit, my final bellyache with

No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises please

Such a pretty house, such a pretty garden

No alarms and no surprises (let me out of here)
No alarms and no surprises (let me out of here)
No alarms and no surprises please (let me out of here)

---

I like this song, it calms me down. I'm wondering what it means though.

I have been, for the past two days, been denied of my usual comfortable seat and desk at the usual study center. It is because it is the Board examinations next Sunday and people, like myself perhaps, obviously have the same propensity to cram. But the quantity is a staggering fact, as I saw one study center to the next full to the brim. And so, the psychiatric reviewer which I have been aching so much to read, since it is where I am the weakest (especially to outlandish drug names), lay virginly unread. I have tried McDonald's, which was too noisy, and studying in our damnable little room, I found, was too depressing. Tomorrow I will try once again, and will come very early, for it is not mere seat and a desk - it is life and death.

He carefully closes his relatively expensive review book (the only book in his possession which isn' a reprint, bought in desperate need rather than mere preference) and clumsily throws the pencil across the enclosed wooden table, making a cogwheel noise as it rolled along into the company of its comrades. He sighs, long and deep, as a man who is unaccustomed to long hours of sitting, and rubs his tired eyes. He notices that his fingers were freezing from the airconditioning. He looks around, some of the other reviewees doesn't seem to mind the cold, while others were almost clad in Alaskan parkas.

He throws a hapless look towards his recent score - a 9 out of 11, which would make at least 80 percent out of a hundred. He likes to think it that way, percentages are rather easy to understand or compare. But it would probably have been different if he answered a hundred questions, his scores contently linger below 70 percent and have never really gone above that. Well, except on rare occasions  He wonders if his reviews would make any difference. He doesn't know. He hasn't the mind to answer that intimidating yellow compilation he had sitting on a shelf for two months, nor has he bothered with the pre-Board which everyone in his class look forward to with child-like apprehension. He is afraid it would depress him or frustrate him more. He has long decided, for sheer lack of time, that he would concentrate on reading and would only answer questions in the Board examination itself. He wonders if it is a bad idea.

He gets up slowly, careful not to make too much noise and disturb the other slouching figures, and turns towards the water dispenser to make himself another coffee. His friend would normally accompany him in his breaks, and would converse with him, with odd relief, things other than nursing: computers, games, politics, etc. However, his friend texted him the night before that he would be going back to Butuan to take care of his Board application, leaving him, with such unexpectation, to finish the review in his lonesome. He doesn't mind. He has, in the past, found himself of being capable of accomplishing things alone, and has found great pride in it for it establishes his so-called independence. But he would not mind, either, any company now.

He pays the cashier for the coffee and goes back to his table. His chair makes a creaking noise as he settles down his bottom. A girl, probably distracted from her reading, looks up at him. He smiles apologetically at her. She smiles briefly and returns to her reading. He sips his coffee, it was too hot, and sits it beside the cluttered pencils. Ten days, he reminds himself, ten days left and it will all be over. He takes a look at the clock on the wall, stretches his arms, and suppresses a yawn . He gingerly opens his book again and, shaking off the thoughts in his head, proceeded to read another chapter.

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.