The Revision Vignettes: 1. Bring It On

~ Author's Note: The next set of posts are all set over the revision period, and to try out something new I've decided that instead of a couple of weekly posts (by which point you'd be as bored of revision as I was!), I've turned it into a number of short posts focusing on one day at a time. As these will all be much shorter than my usual posts, I'm planning on posting one every two days over a two-week period. Hopefully you enjoy! 

Secondly, I know the timing of these is completely out of whack with the present. I thought about trying to catch up but figured I'd rather write the posts as I have them in my head instead of trying to force anything and lose the quality of the posts - apologies for any Christmas withdrawal symptoms induced! ~


I couldn't believe a whole semester had passed already. It had flown by so quickly - but equally, I felt like I hadn't relaxed properly in months. And the stress wasn't about to pass anytime soon - we had just under two weeks of revision before we had five exams in four days. As usual (because I was convinced the exam board hated chemical engineers), our final exam was on the afternoon of the last day of the exam period, meaning that I wouldn't get home until the 23rd of December.

I was already craving home - I was missing so many of our family traditions, from decorating the tree, to making the cake, to putting on crazy amounts of weight comprised almost entirely of my mum's amazing home-made mince pies. I just wanted to lie down in front of the fireplace, with the dog curled up in my legs, my family snuggled up on the sofas around me, with some awful TV movie on as the snow fell down outside. I wanted it so badly. Instead, I had my ever-present buddies of critical exhaustion and stress to keep me company for the next fortnight as I tried to make sense of three months of lecture notes.

The night after our final lectures, I was half watching Embarrassing Bodies with Dave (one of his many weird guilty pleasure TV shows) when my phone started buzzing. Scrambling to find it amongst my stolen mound of cushions, I picked it up to see 'Bob' on the screen. Wandering out the room so I didn't distract Dave, I clicked answer.

"So despite spending the whole day with me, have you finally realised you can't bear another minute without my glorious company?" I greeted Bob, hearing him chuckle on the other end.

"Definitely not, first thing I did on getting home was hold a 'Getting rid of Jane' party, it was fantastic. You should have been there - oh wait, you not being invited was kind of the point..."

"You're absolutely hilarious. Just listen to my uncontrollable laughter - although it being non-existent, you might need to listen for a while."

"I'm going to quote you on that someday. I'll just have a giant poster of my face and 'BOB' across the top, with a quote below going 'Five stars from Jane - 'absolutely hilarious... uncontrollable laughter...'"

"Yeah, I'm fairly certain you can't do that, I'll just get Gary to use some of that law degree on you, and then we'll get you locked up and never have to see you again! Best solution possible!"

"Oh Jane, you wound me so! Such hurtful, hurtful words."

Snickering, I shook my head grinning. "Ha, you spend enough time with me, you're used to it! Anyway, did you actually have a reason for phoning apart from our delightful verbal sparring?"

"Funnily enough, I did. I was going to ask, are you starting revision tomorrow?"

"I thought about taking the day off, but I'm so stressed about these exams I don't think I could relax if I tried. So, I'll probably be heading down to our usual room at uni at about half 8, you want to join?"

"Actually, I have another proposal. Instead of wasting time walking back and forth between uni every day, do you want to come study at mine? I always find it's much better revising with someone else, plus it means we don't have to spend a fortune in the uni cafes every day..."

I thought about it for all of half a second before agreeing. Bob agreed that half 8 was still a good time to start, and after we decided that we hung up. He was right, I had always revised better with other people. I pick things up very quickly, so I then usually spent a lot of time teaching the concepts to others. It challenged me to come up with simple but memorable ways of demonstrating the ideas, which in turn helped massively with remembering everything myself. Feeling slightly better about the impending revision weeks, a nugget of determination settled in my chest. I'd survived this much of the nightmare year so far, what were two and a half more weeks? Bring it on!

As I settled back into my cushion mound, Dave glanced over.

"Was that Bob?"

"Yup, he's suggesting we revise at his instead of trekking it over to uni every day. Looking at the upcoming weather forecast, sounded like a pretty decent idea to me."

"Hmph." Dave grunted noncommittally and turned back to the TV. Narrowing my eyes at him, I stared at him silently until he noticed.

"What?"

"Don't what me, what yourself! What was that?"

He paused briefly. "Nothing." 

I gave him The Look. "Mr Dave, I haven't lived with you this long without picking a few things up. Do you not like Bob?"

He squirmed under my gaze. "Uh, it's not exactly that I don't like him..."

I picked up a cushion, preparing to throw. "Dave..."

"Fine! I just think he acts inappropriately around you, that's all. Especially with his girlfriend being long distance and all. If I was her, I'd hate you."

Taken aback, I went to protest but he cut me off, noticing the hurt clearly visible on my face. "Jane, I'm not accusing you of anything. I know you'd never do anything with a taken guy, not after Lee. You could basically be a nun with that guilt complex you have going on. Just... spending hours and hours with him, every day? Watch your boundaries, that's all."

I nodded silently. He was right, as always.

"Anyway, that's your advice from Therapist Dave for the day, you can transfer my million pound fee direct to my bank account." A laugh escaped from me as the atmosphere lightened again in the room. Whatever happened, Dave could always make me laugh and feel better.