Within 4 walls

Gone are love and teddy bears, fire places and fuzzy feelings-- they have all been smothered by the stress of EXAMS. The humongous thing that looms in the very near future, bearing it's teeth down upon us all. I've never liked exams (I guess nobody does), but I dislike them especially because they drive me crazy. Because I feel it judges me in the severest senses of the word. It brands me with either a stamp of approval or disapproval that I carry along with me for the rest of my life, oftentime manifesting itself in a niggling voice at the back of my mind-- "only 60 on that test? Oh no good, you're gonna fail the next one". Although when I sit back and think about it really, it isn't the 60 that determines my fate the next round, it is that defeatist thinking I sometimes harbour that is the culprit and that I must try to eradicate.

Somedays I wonder why we have to have exams. It draws my focus away from learning what is useful to me in the future and narrows my perspective to just coping with the immediate needs-- exam technique, what pleases examiners, how to "tikam" MCQ questions. And I just find that so draining, because it hardly adds value to my life or my work in the future. I love what I do, there never is a shadow of doubt about that, there's hardly anything that makes me happier in the world than caring for the many defenceless souls one encounters on the job and because of that I love to learn, because it will help me help patients in the future but also because of the great pleasure learning gives. And exams just take that all away, you know, takes away the sanctity and joy of learning and taints it with fear, ego, desperation, frustration, perfectionism. But I guess we can't have things our way always. Sheer pragmaticism in me knows exams are a quintessential part of academics, without which there is no benchmark for evaluation and comparison. Oh well...

On my way to school everyday, I walk past a Greek Orthodox church. Usually it's doors are closed, but today, there was a large congregation of people outside. And as I walked closer, I realised that it was a wedding ceremony, the end part where everybody gathers outside to take photos before the bride flings her bouquet into the crowd. I couldn't help but stop to look and when I did it felt so surreal somehow-- these dignified men in their dark, tailored suits with their smiling wives fronted by the newly wed couple who stood hand in hand looking so blissful, so happy, so in love. The bride especially, looked beautiful with her long dark tresses and svelte figure clothed in soft white satin. Looking at them, the world at that moment just felt so perfect and the whole scene just evoked that warm fuzzy feeling one associates with fireplaces, soft toys and love.