I've realised that, good as the whole 'one subject at a time' thing sounds, the twenty week semester is actually really hard.

Part of the problem is that while there have been a few long weekends, and a break over Easter, there hasn't been that nice two or three week rest period where you literally have nothing to think about except what you're going to eat and, the clothes you're going to buy.

Thinking about it, I've never in my life had to stay focused for such a long period of time. That makes me sound a bit magpie-ish, you know, shiny object and *ping* I'm gone. But it isn't like that, it's just that having to stay focused on the same thing for quite a long time is tiring. In school, you have nice 10 week blocks, and at uni there's a nice pretty mid-session break (which, granted, you're meant to study through, but I don't recall ever doing that) and a max of 16 weeks with exams and stuvac all thrown in. And you have more than one thing to think about, you don't see the same 20 people every single day, and you're not in the same room every single day...

God, the more I talk about it, the more it sounds like working in an office.

I think the worst part is that over the past two and a half years, my ability to study and concentrate on studying for exams when I need to has gradually diminished. It's been a long long time since I was able to study for 10 hours straight motivated by the sheer terror of failure (hello first year chemistry) and I'm starting to burn out. The worst part is not even the studying or lack of concentration, but the back and neck pain I end up with that actually makes me feel like a part of my back has caught on fire. It starts on the first day of studying, and by about the third I can't actually twist my neck or bend over. Also by the third day the muscles in my hand have started to seize and the lump on the side of my little finger is shiny from constantly being rubbedd against whatever I'm writing on. And you can't buy Ibuprofen or panadol in the supermarket here.

But never mind, my exam is tomorrow, 9-2, and then I won't have to think, write, or sit in this goddamn non-ergonomic chair again until September. Unless I fail. Then I'll be doing the resit in August.

I may not be able to get my hands on any Ibuprofen right now, but come 2pm tomorrow, there's a large bottle of vodka with my name on it somewhere in Uppsala. Wish me luck.