Do you know what really Grinds my Gears Part 2: Tests

Welcome back to what really Grinds my Gears: Part 2! This week, I look at my Arch-Enemy, Tests! Quite simply put, Tests are a pain in the butt. They exist to stress you out, taunting you with the prospect of a bad result (shudders), and threatening you with a dark stain on your report. I'm only a month into 4eme right now and I can't even count how many Tests I've had already (I think I've done something like five Maths Tests in one month!). Tests are a living hell, but can be rewarding in the long term, which is part of the reason why I keep crawling back into its Dark, evil clutches...

                                                        THEY STRESS YOU OUT!


Tests are a emotional Roller-Coaster, with three primary stages:
1. Revision, the dreaded period where you have to Review everything you've done in the past week/month of  any subject (not accounting Sport, where Tests are a matter of endurance and physical skill), which for me, normally accounts to 2-3 Hours per Test (no joke, it takes FOREVER for me to even remember one sentence). I spend an entire day pushing back the so-called "Revision time" just because its B-O-R-I-N-G. I mean, could you recite a page of French Text for two Hours without getting bored? I can't. The Revision stage is nessecary if you even want to hope about getting a good Result. I learnt the time-consuming way that if you manage to recite your lessons off by heart you're practically guaranteed to get 5/5, 10/10, 20/20 ect... Only problem is that after two hours of reciting the words over and over again those words become just that: WORDS. It has no meaning to me any more. In Tests, I'm just reciting words by memory onto a piece of paper without any thought behind it. Like Blogger.com tasked with remembering the words that I've typed  when I hit the 'SAVE' button right now. I'm not invested into the subject at all, I'm invested into getting a good Test result. Ask me a Week after any Test whether I remember anything about that Test and I'll say (apart from what Result I got) NO. So that kinda defeats the whole purpose of a Test doesn't it?

2. The Test, the moment when you're the most stressed out: the high stress level points being right before the Test, when your frantically checking your Memory to see whether or not you've remembered anything, and the point where you stumble upon a Question where you have no idea what the answer is (which really Grinds my Gears I can tell you, because for me, thats one point or more less, which then means a lower score, which then means that my Report for the Trimestre has gone down as well, which then means...IT CAN NEVER BE PERFECT!...And I have less a chance of beating my previous score). These moments are the make-or-break of a Test. The really annoying thing about all this stress is that it can  sometimes put a cloud over your Memory, which means blocking certain facts or just effecting the overall Score in any way it can. If stress was a person, I'd shoot it, along with that over Bastard, the guy that invented Education: "GET ON THE FLOOR AND BEG FOR YOUR LIFE!" BANG! Anyway, lets wrap things up, as this paragraph is already becoming far too long...
3. The Result, the part of the process that requires the least effort, but contains one of the most tense filled moments of the entire process. So you've spent the next agonising days wondering about what the outcome will be, whether a 20/20 awaits you or a most evil 10/20 (10 is a insult, 0 is excrutiatingly painful), ready to eat you whole. I've had my fair share of both Results, and this is the only time that I can say that the wait is truly KILLING me. The moment when the Teacher hands you back your Test, the moment when you first set your eyes over the dark red ink at the top of the page, showcasing the two encircled numbers, is THE most tense filled, gut wrenching, suspensful and heart tearing moment that only the greatest of Alfred Hitchcock films can truly match up to. Then, at that precise moment, your fate is revealed...

It can end two ways: one where your left immediately overwelmed, happy, and proud....or the other where you feel bottomless, bullet-hole ridden and deserted, hating your very existance and even going as far as saying you hate your Life. It may shock you how someone can get so emotionally overwelmed over the History Test you had last Friday, but for me, thats what Tests are like. But why get so worked up about it? Its only a Test right? Surely its no big deal? This may seem like a cop out answer to these questions, but I have no reason why, it just affects me that way...

Having said that though, I have only recently become the perfectionist that I am, and I now find myself at the unfortunate point where a 18/20 in a History Test that I spent nearly three Hours on Sunday night revising for it is simply not enough. I have somehow developped this greed to become perfect in everything, and even though I can never acheive 20/20 in everything, god damn do I try. I suppose that's a good thing, put please God, take away all the stress and the hard work, I'm trying to be lazy, I really am! Funnily enough, two years ago I was getting really bad results, not to mention having quite a tough time at School and even a few Family issues. I can't say things have turned out the completely opposite way, but damn if it hasn't improved alot. So perhaps these feelings only occur to perfectionists such as myself? I don't know...
Anyway, I have already done far too much typing (my hands are VERY sore), and I've got quite a bit of Revising to do for an upcoming Test....OH NO, NOT ANOTHER ONE!    

                                                 ARGHHHHHHHHHHH!

Do you know what really Grinds my Gears Part 1: Sport

Welcome to What Really Grinds My Gears Part 1: Sport. Now I love alot of things (Doctor Who, Merlin, My Dog, Movies, Peter Pan, Games, My Computer ect...), and I mean ALOT of things...but there is still alot of stuff that I HATE, stuff that I could probably fill a entire Book with (School, Homework, Sport, My Brother, those really long queues at at Theme Parks ect...), or better yet, a Blog Post. This really is one of my pet hates at the moment though: Sport! It is by far the most unfair, pointless and quite simply painful thing around! At the moment we're doing Baseball on Wednesdays and Endurance on Thursdays:

 Baseball is unfair. Its unfair because everyone else on the other team IS SO FRIKKEN GOOD! Why do they keep putting all the weak ones in the same Team? THATS NOT EVEN! ALL THE GOOD ONES ARE IN THE OTHER TEAM! So I was holding the Bat, whacking the Ball and racing towards the first base, only for this really annoying French voice to yell: "YOURRRRR OUTTTT!" I was just Nanometres away from it! They had caught the ball in mid air (which, in this game means that everyone thats not at a Base at this point in the field will be eliminated)! Not just me, but five players were eliminated in one fell swoop. And this one guy catches the ball EVERY single time! The score by the end of the game was 7-32! THATS HARDLY FAIR! HOW COULD WE POSSIBLY WIN AGAINST THIS GUY? Not that I hate him, but he's too far too good, and its just ruining the game for all of us (apart from the people on his Team of course). We tried to eliminate him when we were in Defense, but he hits the ball to the OTHER END OF THE FIELD, HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO CATCH THAT IN MID-AIR! And by the time we return the Ball he's already done like THREE HOME-RUNS! *SIGH* The funny thing is, this guy only comes up to my waist (HE IS THAT SMALL!) and I'm not kidding, he wears Baby shoes he's so small. He is the closest thing to Speedy Gonzalus on this Earth! And theres always that Jack-ass that likes to rub it in! YES I GET THAT WE'VE LOST, SHUT UP! (Note: I don't actually talk alot in School, so this is just what I'm thinking in my head, not what I actually said.) This guy is just a ASSSS-HOLE! He is just evil to everyone (luckily he mainly keeps away from me most of time) in my School, so nobody tolerates it, and the Teacher actually applied disipline for once when he started flying Insults to everyone. Baseball is clearly a pain, but its nothing compared to Endurance!             

 Endurance is painful both PHYSICALLY AND PAINFULLY! It tests your will in the most brutal of ways and will make your legs ache forever! (My legs are still aching from Thursday!) Endurance, quite simply put, is Running without stopping for fourteen minutes. Sounds simple doesn't it? But NOOO, its the longest fourteen minutes you'll ever have! My legs turn to jelly after the first lap and after the second lap of the field my Body fails completely, and only the sheer power of will alone got me through the next ten minutes! Its the closest thing to Torture, it truly is! The cross country race is on October 15th at our lake, and this is what they've been preparing us for, But Why Though? Why do we have to suffer? I don't know, apparently its a 'tradition'. BULLSH*T! THIS IS COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY POINTLESS CRAP THAT TORTURES THE SOUL, RUINS YOUR BODY, AND TESTS YOUR WILL! IT WILL DESTROY YOU! WHY TORTURE YOUR ALREADY OVERWORKED STUDENTS THAT (QUITE FRANKLY) CONTINUES TO PRODUCE AMAZING RESULTS ON A WEEK-TO-WEEK BASIS?! ENDURANCE IS EVIL! WHOEVER ADDED THIS TO THE EDUCATION SYSTEM IN FRANCE SHOULD BE SHOT IN THE HEAD! NOW THIS IS WHAT REALLY GRINDS MY GEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!