dinitrogen trioxide.

so... another day, another two weeks since i've taken the time to put anything up on the ol' pig pen blogwash. anyway, time to act as if that never happened.

i've decided that the key to happiness, or at least absence of aggravation, is essentially the delay of affect or knowledge of affect. this seems to be the case at least as a student right now.

i'm by no means seeking to convince anybody that you should forget consequences in order to paint a picture of a more pleasant reality. instead, it's sort of a method for dealing with really frustrating situations.

example.
testing is part of education. fair enough.
you know (or remember) the really annoying feeling of reading a question, knowing the answer is somewhere inside your huge skull, and still putting the wrong answer simply because you can't seem to claw it out? yeah. i have that somewhat frequently. now, if i hear the answer to such questions within hours of taking the test, i'll be aggravated. within a day or two, annoyed. past that, i can view it subjectively. or as close to it as i'll ever be, i suppose.

the reason i bring this up is because i used this exact same method on friday after a chemistry test. we'll see how i did soon enough. but the story goes something like this--

friday, at three forty-five, i enter the testing center after studying for a few hours. i bring with me a packet of cookies, three mechanical pencils, and a sheet of graph paper for notes and pencil work. i recieve my test, solubility chart, and bubble sheet and head for the first left-hand-friendly desk i can find.

test begins. i work on the first ten problems for half an hour. fifty questions to go with two and a half hours left before i need to turn it in. now, the first ten i had a fair grasp of. it was tricky, but most of the answers options i picked had perfectly matched the answer i came to. around question eleven, that changed. and so it went. i decided instead of taking forever on each one, i'd blaze throught the ones i already knew. and i did. maybe half the test was "easy" stuff i could quickly recall. as for the rest, i took a break before i started. i'd been there an hour and a half by the time i had completed all the stuff i knew.

cookie break.

the sun that had been peaking in the window and pouring on my desk at the beginning had since migrated to the next row over and my wrist was cramping. it's strange though, after the cookies, the testing center took on a different feeling. at first enterance, it's an opponenent. something to beat. as your test continues, it becomes a tyrant--something you must submit to or conquer. but when you've been there for a few hours, your eating a cookie, and you have a few moments to take in atmosphere of pencil lead and fluttering papers, it becomes a sort of friend. not one you'd want to hang out with, more the kind of friend that offers a shoulder to cry on. it's almost as if he would rather you didn't have to be there, but since you do, he's going to try to keep you as comfortable as he can.

but i digress.

when the cookies were gone, i continued on. this is where educated and non educated guessing came into play much more than before. either way, within another hour's time, i had completed the exam. entrance time: 15:45. exit time: 18:30. it was quite a trip.

and now on the the point.
you see, i don't know how i did on that test. they have a tv screen when you leave that will tell you, but i decided not to look. now, i still don't know, but it's something that i can't change now. so why let it ruin my weekend?
i have an anatomy mid-term on monday, and i think i'll check my chem score after that. we'll see how i did on a chemistry test after i take an anatomy exam and hope the edge is worn off if the grade is poor.

and so, my idea of a delay equalling a lack of aggrivation will possibly be put to the test.

i suppose we'll see.