Gearing up for close of a 12-year chapter

Nica Cornell: Dear Diary.I Read somewhere that "writing is the socially acceptable form of schizophrenia". Oh good, I'm not crazy.

I'm writing matric and I'm battling a whole bunch of Nicas. There's hippie Nica, who knows that exhales should follow inhales, that "this too shall pass" and that my true self is not defined by my lowest mark. There's scholastic Nica, who categorises, sub-categorises, deals and recalls the exact three bones she did not know in her biology exam.

And then there's me, who's too tired to be, or argue with, either. By the time I reached my last mock exam, words like "the" escaped me and, weeks later, I'm afraid it's not much better. There's a stack of paper on my shelf that consists of all my study notes. They're comprehensive, explicit and useful - and they're all mixed up.

I was so relieved when I finished the last time, and so utterly exhausted, that I didn't bother to file them in an orderly way. And, frighteningly soon, I have to pick them up again. It is this that has stopped scholastic Nica from sorting them. I can't face looking at each piece of paper, knowing that, in a short while, I have to know it all again.

My stress levels exist in the form of a pot designed to make the BFG stew that is big and deep. I don't wash up very often so, every time I cook anything, some old bits of gristle from the last dish rock up at the top. Currently, it's simmering. Inside it sit all the niceties (emotions and fears) that come with finishing a 12-year-long chapter in one's life, along with a to-do list that keeps getting longer as they throw us last-minute assessments.

But, on top of it all, there's what I cannot think - this is it, the culmination of it all. This is what all the tests and tests, exams and exams, have been in aid of.

If I think about that, my brain goes into survival mode and shuts down. The reason the pot is merely simmering and not pounding its thick, ugly stress-stew all over the walls, is that I'm tired. I'm still too tired to work, so I just put a lid on it.

We all joke about the "bell curve" and how finals have to be easy because they need us to pass. We joke because we're scared. We're ready for the next chapter but I don't know if we're quite ready for the last page of this one.