Keep calm and carry on.

Now I don't want to offend the Scottish Qualifications Authority in any way. However, It would have been nice not to have too sit through hours of torture yesterday, courtesy of them. The maths exam was hard - as expected. Although, due to the difficulty of the exam I found myself fantasising about banging my confused head off the table until I could leave.

This did not happen, but from talking to others who were subjected to the horrifying experience also, I have gathered that the exam was not only hard for me, or for my fellow fourth years. It was also hard for the actual Maths Teachers to get their heads around some of the questions. Now, I'm sorry but how is a mere child of 15 or 16 supposed to be able to achieve a reasonable grade in a paper that was completely foreign, even to our teachers? In the immortal words of every mature adult I have spoken to since the experience "There is nothing I can do about it now..." Yes, that makes me feel so much better.

Just to add insult to injury I would like to point out how disorganised our particular invigilator was. Room 74 seemed to have a distinct shortage of answer papers and therefore, a distinct shortage of anyone actually allowed to do the exam. Ten minutes after the official start of the exam, the 'Chief' invigilator came running up the stairs and produced two question papers. This was not what we were looking for. Another five minutes after that, he came bounding back into the room (I say bounding but it was more of a brisk walk) with  exactly what we needed to begin our exam. I proceeded to clap, as I was grateful for this man's kind and helpful actions. Apparently he didn't want me to clap. I stopped clapping. We were able to start the exam 15 minutes after everyone else, and all was at peace. That is, until the wind picked up speed and began to blow in through the window, driving the huge set of blinds crazy and encouraging the classroom door to randomly open and close on a regular basis. It was very distracting and my left hand started to turn a strange shade of purple which was also highly worrying. In aid of the problem, the tiny little invigilator closed the windows and all was at peace once again. Apart from the raging battle between numbers and sanity that was occurring in the brains of many, that is.

So, its over to the examiners now. I just hope to god, they get through at least half of my paper without becoming teary eyed and depressed at the state of the youth of today -  well, their maths skills.