Study Leave and Other Lies

Have any of you seen that episode of Skins in which the college director abolishes study leave and forces all Year 13 students to revise "on the premises, 9 'till 4:30, no excuses, no exceptions". Well, that might be the kind of intervention I need now.

I'm not even kidding. The one month between the written and speaking exams - a.k.a. study leave - is intended to, you know, give us time to study, but for the exception of the first day - which I spent writing things to post on here - I have done absolutely nothing productive. Seriously, I've thought about everything I've done these past weeks, and this is all I could come up with:

1. I re-watched the entire first generation of Skins. Twice
2. I started watching the third generation of Skins, because why not give it a chance? But mostly because of Alex Arnold.
3. I obsessed over Alex Arnold. 
4. I went to an indie-music themed party, almost froze to death on the street as it started two hours late, and ended the night in a way that can be best described by Katy Perry's first hit single. 
5. I attempted to sort out the mess that USC created by failing to put my scholarship on my visa application form, but that issue is still very much ongoing. And it's causing me sleepless nights.
6. Tumblr.
7. This blog.

Yep. That's it really. I might have briefly gathered my thoughts on The Odyssey and the electoral system of Hungary, but it clearly hasn't been enough. My speaking exams start on the 16th, and I don't know a thing. And neither does anyone else in my class, apparently, because everyone else I've spoken to has been going to the beach, partying 24/7, feeding kittens and doing pretty much anything else to procrastinate. And that gets me wondering whether study leave is even worth it?

Because study leave is a lie. It gives you a false sense of comfort. It implies that you'll get to relax a little before the rest of your exams. It implies that you'll have plenty of time to study and catch up with what you failed to learn before. You put all your hopes in study leave, but then it lets you down by ending so quickly, and it is on your last night of your pseudo-freedom that you realize how little you've actually done...

And I'm not saying I don't study before exams, because I do. A lot. I pull all-nighters and drink five coffees a day and don't let myself get distracted, and guess what? It works. But then once I'm done, I enter a kind of state in which I am too tired to do anything and simply lie on my bed for days on end thinking about completely pointless things. And that's OK, because after an incredibly stressful period, it is alright to be really tired and exhausted. It's a normal post-exam state.

With exams coming in two waves, however, I'm an a post-exam state in a pseudo-post-exam period, as although I'm done with one half of the exams, I still have the second half left. And I should study, but I can't, because this is not what I'm used to. And I should return to the material that I've been cramming for weeks but what I've already forgotten, and learn it all again. And I wonder why this couldn't all be done in one go. Because then I wouldn't feel so guilty about procrastinating while writing posts such as this one right now...