Season of doom.
I'm taking a study break to update my journal for a bit to calm myself down and not throw up from nerves. Now that the Quidditch season is over, the stress of the upcoming exams is hitting everyone with full force. I'm getting rather worried about it myself. I mean, I've been pretty consistent with my assignments and haven't done badly in any, and I always make it point to revise my notes daily so it's just a matter of absorbing the information in my head and I should do fine. The teachers are also trying to give us pointers and we've all been booking appointments with them to make sure our revision is on the right track, and they've all been really nice and helpful about it. Still, I can't help fretting, especially since there are way more materials to memorise than last year and I barely managed to get past last year's without getting panic attacks hourly. What if my brain suddenly goes blank on the exam day? What if my head explodes and makes a mess on the paper and I'll ruin my summer by having to resit everything? What if the teachers are pulling our puppet strings with their tips and hints? What if I'm so exhausted with studying that I can't tell whether my puppet string are being pulled or not? Oh, my head, my head! I usually go to the library if I need a break just to read something light and fun but now I've been avoiding going there because Hermione takes up half the library with her notes and it makes me very nervous.
The tension in the Hufflepuff common room is not helping at all. Everyone is working so hard and looking like zombies that we've decided it best not to attempt a proper conversation until the exams are over. Justin has been walking around with his nose in a book and more books and parchment Spellotaped all over his body. When I asked him about it, he pulled me aside and whispered that he's trying the Osmosis method of revision and told me not to spread it around all else everyone will copy him. I'm tempted to try his method but it's quite inconvenient and I'm used to my own revision system and it's probably not a good idea to try something new when the exams are so near. Poor Susan hasn't been sleeping much at all and keeps falling asleep in the middle of a sentence. Justin's been really sweet and making tea and coffee for her all the time but it doesn't seem to help, so now she's resorted to walking around with a tea bag in her mouth, which is pretty funny but quite a good idea as well. Eloise, on the other hand, has been isolating herself from everyone for a long time. I'm not quite sure what she's up to, but the last time I spot her in the common room, she was balancing a tray full of poppets, cupcakes with bits of paper in them, and a very large jug of something that looks strangely like Pepperup Potion. I hope she's not trying to eat her textbooks but didn't ask. I don't think I really want to know either. I've been doing my revision mostly with Ernie and Mandy. Mandy and I have been following our study time-table pretty strictly, not that she needs to because she's really clever, but she's starting to scare me a bit by randomly reciting whole paragraphs from our textbooks when she's asleep and during meal times. Ernie has been recording down everything that the teachers have been saying and playing them back for "discourse analysis". He didn't explain what that is but he's got this huge chart with Positively suspicious, Likely truths, and What they are really saying written in capital letters across the top so I guess he's trying to decode and spot essay questions. That's my Ernest.
The tension in the Hufflepuff common room is not helping at all. Everyone is working so hard and looking like zombies that we've decided it best not to attempt a proper conversation until the exams are over. Justin has been walking around with his nose in a book and more books and parchment Spellotaped all over his body. When I asked him about it, he pulled me aside and whispered that he's trying the Osmosis method of revision and told me not to spread it around all else everyone will copy him. I'm tempted to try his method but it's quite inconvenient and I'm used to my own revision system and it's probably not a good idea to try something new when the exams are so near. Poor Susan hasn't been sleeping much at all and keeps falling asleep in the middle of a sentence. Justin's been really sweet and making tea and coffee for her all the time but it doesn't seem to help, so now she's resorted to walking around with a tea bag in her mouth, which is pretty funny but quite a good idea as well. Eloise, on the other hand, has been isolating herself from everyone for a long time. I'm not quite sure what she's up to, but the last time I spot her in the common room, she was balancing a tray full of poppets, cupcakes with bits of paper in them, and a very large jug of something that looks strangely like Pepperup Potion. I hope she's not trying to eat her textbooks but didn't ask. I don't think I really want to know either. I've been doing my revision mostly with Ernie and Mandy. Mandy and I have been following our study time-table pretty strictly, not that she needs to because she's really clever, but she's starting to scare me a bit by randomly reciting whole paragraphs from our textbooks when she's asleep and during meal times. Ernie has been recording down everything that the teachers have been saying and playing them back for "discourse analysis". He didn't explain what that is but he's got this huge chart with Positively suspicious, Likely truths, and What they are really saying written in capital letters across the top so I guess he's trying to decode and spot essay questions. That's my Ernest.