Waiting To Wake

Life After IB 28/06/2010

Life after IB is supposed to be great. It’s what you fantasise about when you’re knee-deep in essays and IAs, when you’re wading through mock exams, when you have to drag yourself to school at 7 in the morning every day instead of skiving  – which would probably be the saner thing to do. Skiving, that is.

In reality, life after IB is kind of…purposeless. Ok, that’s pretty predictable. All those quotes about life being empty without stress are, sadly enough, true. I spent a week or two in a happy daze, mindlessly Youtubing every day and sleeping like I’d never be able to again. And then-

And then, the nightmare. 10 days after the end of my exams, I dreamt about them. I hadn’t been deliberately thinking or not thinking about my failures, but I dreamt about them all the same. It was…pretty bad. 32 points overall, with 555 for English, German, and Philosophy. I was horrified. Completely and utterly horrified.

There were comments next to the scores (unrealistics, yes), and the one for English talked about how great it was that I got to love the drama texts. I remember thinking, or at least dreaming, “IS THAT NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU?!?” Overreaction? Probably. But hey, it was a dream. And I’m melodramatic these days.

I woke up and it was still vaguely dark outside, so I checked the alarm clock. It was mocking me. You know what the time was? 5:55. I really wish I was making this up, but it’s true – fact is stranger than fiction – or however the saying goes. I was so freaked out from the nightmare that I didn’t even see the irony till today. It’s been a month.

That was probably the most significant thing that happened post-exams. Apart from the amazing Taiwan gradtrip (blogged by my friend Wendy here – I’m way too lazy to write anything about it), of course. Apart from that, I’ve been glued to my laptop for the past month or so. I’ve started reading for leisure again, except, more often than not, I find myself analysing (not intentionally!) what I read, so I’m forced to stop. It comes and goes.

I’ve been feeling masochistic lately. During dinner tonight, I found myself missing the bone-deep exhaustion that used to hit me at approximately that time. Usually I’d find that my eyelids were drooping in the middle of chewing some rice, or looking down at my bowl, or something like that. I was really surprised to notice that the feeling wasn’t there. How can you possibly miss that kind of feeling?!? I really don’t know.

All this is probably going to change in a week or so’s time. Why? You guessed it – IB results are coming out. 7th July, 4 in the morning, Hong Kong time. I’m thinking that I’ll stay up to watch the World Cup semi-final (it starts at 2:30AM here) to try and take my mind off my impending doom, check my results afterwards, then go cry in a corner.

Depending on what I get, I’ll start studying again the week after. I really am that much of a masochist. The truly saddening thing? The following exchange happened between my first and second week of exams:

My friend R and I were at the library, doing hardcore revision. On the way back from lunch…

Me: Ok, I know this sounds really sad, but I think I’m going to come back here during the summer holidays to study for uni.
R: SAME!!!

She seemed so happy about it too. What have we become?