I don’t usually wake up feeling tired. Well…this is how things are: for the past few days, I’ve been sleeping late on account that I had to study for today’s exam. It’s been real hard work, I tell you. I can’t remember the last time I worked my ass off this much? On Tuesday, I hardly slept for more than three hours, and on top of that I had to literally force myself out of bed at 7 a.m. Exams are the real shit, I tell you.

But at least, I managed to cover most of the work. My mom freaked out when I told her that. ‘Covering most of the work’ doesn’t sound convincing to her. Instead, I should be singing the work by heart, reciting it like poetry and knowing every freaken text in the textbook.

I don’t think she understand how difficult it is to study 8 whole chapters for an exam that’s only going to be out of 100 marks. I mean, how do you even know what’s going to come out? I know I usually say that luck is for those who play the lottery and that those who enter an exam room looking for luck are looking at the wrong place, but right now I feel like luck is all I need.

On a serious note though, there is only just so much that you as a student or learner can do to prepare for the exams – and the rest is beyond your immediate control. It’s even worse when you don’t even have past question papers of exams to help you with the preparation. But mom says I am not serious about passing.

Honestly speaking, I hate the pressure she sometimes put me under, but sometimes I realise that maybe it’s only because she expects her daughter to be a genius. And I am not about to go all ‘love-me-for-me’ on my mom anytime soon. If she expects her daughter to be a genius who sings a textbook all by heart just like those people who can quote the Bible willy-nilly then that’s fine by me… BUT it does not mean I have to comply, or try to live up to her standards or anything.

I mean, what’s the point of trying to prove to her that I studied? I know, and that’s enough. I know that the work I had to cover, of which I covered most, was a lot. It was so much work that I didn’t need anyone to remind me that what was best for me was to stay away from social networks. And that, for me, is more than proof – it is achievement.

It’s what makes me believe that as I sit down for exams later today I won’t be feeling any guilt, knowing very well I did my best. And, for me, my best is enough!

ZZ xxx

Dish it: do you think it is necessary to try to prove yourself to your parents?