Londonward

I’m not so happy about today’s exam. Sure, I’m glad it’s over, but the actual writing of it was a pain. I was happily writing away, probably on my second page, when an invigilator came to me, leaned over and said “please move your paper more toward the centre of your desk”. Completely befuddled, I did what she told but had lost my rhythm. Apparently, she felt that I had edged my answer booklet too close to the edge of the desk to that the person in the next row (nearly 2 metres away) could take a look at my writing. The fact that she stood behind me for the next ten minutes didn’t help at all. I could tell she was reading over my shoulder at what I had written, waiting for me to put pen to paper. I just couldn’t. Seriously, I felt completely blocked as I felt her standing over my shoulder.

I have never been treated as such a suspect. So what if I look around in the middle of essay sections, or stretch my pained arms after two hours of solid writing? Even her duty to stamp out possible cheating should not give her cause to stand behind me and breathe down my neck looking at what I write. Every time I looked back up at her she was staring at me. At times she went somewhere else in the room, but always came and singled me out eventually.

We were right on the Aldwych, with massive traffic flows constantly droning behind us. Occasionally, the open-top tourist buses would drive past, the guides blaring “The building to your right is…” which didn’t help either. At several points during the exam I completely fell out of the groove, and I think it contributed to me missing out obvious bits in my essays and caused me to eventually run out of time. At one point I wanted to hand over a filled exam booklet to her to have a look through since she was obviously so interested in my graph detailing raindrop formation.

In conclusion, my sincerest thanks go to the overeager Southern European(?) LSE invigilator who screwed up my exam vibes. I hope I never see her again.

Another person who keeps breathing down our neck is the estate agent. Apparently, this time a man had turned up at our doorstep mid-morning asking if he could come in with a client “since we didn’t answer our phones”. We had never received calls - he was clearly lying. When confronted on the issue, he had switched to “oh, your phones were off” but none of us had received answerphone messages either. He was refused admission but came back with another client, and was eventually let inside. I wasn’t at the house, but I still feel violated. Why can’t they adhere to their 24 hour legal notice obligation? Maybe I should take this forward somewhere.

Three to go.

This exam wasn’t terrible, but neither did I think I managed excellent grades. Crucially, I kept forgetting the final aspects of three-fold arguments and didn’t probably drop enough names, but I have a feeling I have the fundamentals of international order vs. justice as well as weapons of mass destruction and the global order down well enough to warrant a passable grade.

The Post-Exam Pint is the same everywhere. The exhilaration is amazing. You feel it go straight to your head.

I’m getting a ton of invitations for end-of-term parties and other gatherings in honour of finishing exams, the coming summer and several birthdays. It’s a great feeling to see calendar entries that are actually pleasant to think about and not deadlines or impending exams. This will all be over in two weeks, with the bulk of the work done by Friday evening.

I reached saturation point yesterday, at least in terms of my International Relations course. After several hours of sitting with a pile of books and notes and writing up essay plans, I just thought that that was enough and there was honestly nothing more I could do. I packed up my stuff and walked home in the gloomy drizzle, feeling a mix of emotions - strangely content, sad and slightly worried. But mostly content. I’d pushed and pushed the boulder up the hill and it was teetering on top right now. Tomorrow I’ll push it off the edge.

I think I have encountered the worst possible interruption to a lazy relaxed Saturday morning. At around 10:30am we heard the flat door open. It was weird because I couldn’t recall the flatmate ever leaving. Then we heard the voice saying hello. My girlfriend jumped up, grabbed a towel around her and opened the bedroom door just as a woman’s hand started to knock on it.

“Hello, estate agent!” she introduced herself. Apparently she had two prospective tenants in tow. The girlfriend quickly closed the door, saying we had to get dressed. I had fallen out of bed and was frantically searching for something to wear. In seconds she was back out of the door pushing the agent back toward the exit saying how we had no idea that she would be coming and to kindly not ever do it again as there were people sleeping and that it was a very uncomfortable situation to be in.

The tenants left quietly out of the door, clearly embarrassed by the situation and not wanting to come in at all, but the agent had stayed and pulled out her phone asking for our numbers so that she could inform me the next time she comes. She was told to call the landlord and arrange it with him and ushered out the door. At the same time I was throwing clothes into the  laundry basket and trying to clear piles of books on the floor.

When the estate agent woman was out of the door, I picked up the phone and called up the landlord. Apparently, he had specifically instructed her to call us well in advance of coming and as such had our numbers. Why she had not done so was beyond him as well, and he described her as “very naughty” (which I thought was funny) and what had happened as “simply not on”. I accepted his apology, but the whole thing left me fuming because who would seriously just barge in to a flat on a Saturday morning with no prior warning? I’m not inclined to clean the place up to be presentable to the likes of her now.

You can’t make this stuff up. Seriously, what is wrong with people? By law, estate agents are supposed to give 24 hours’ notice before coming. Why the hell would she not do that?