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Calculus FAIL

Had an exam today on the wonderful topic of Integral Calculus. I say wonderful because it’s a wonder that anyone can fully understand that shit. I certainly don’t, not anymore. Although, I used to be quite good at maths, back in the day. Despite having a borderline-retard for a maths teacher, I somehow managed a B1 in honours leaving cert maths. It was a surprising result which has since led me to believe that I have a naturally superior mathematical ability. This morning, that misguided notion was exposed in the worst possible way.

I did study for the exam today which just makes failure all the more painful. How can it be, that I got a B1 in my leaving cert (with little or no study) then, a few years later, miserably fail a course which only covers a fraction of the content included in the leaving cert exam… even after studying? I can only conclude that the intervening (party) years of my life have taken their toll on the ‘learning’ part of my brain. Alcohol, hash, ecstasy and other illicit consumables were enjoyed from time to time, but I would hazard a guess that it was my brief, but intense, penchant for LSD that did the damage.

Some people say that LSD expands the mind, opens up new avenues of thought. In a way, this is undeniably true. Before taking acid, I never appreciated a good wallpaper pattern or the amazing colour of trees. On the other hand, analytical thinking whilst under the influence of LSD is pretty damn close to impossible; simple tasks like changing the tv channel or tying your shoelaces become epic mental struggles. This drug-induced retardation is probably only temporary when acid is taken in small doses, but since I spent roughly three months of my life under the constant influence of hallucenogenics I’m starting to think that some nodes and neurons in the analytical part of my brain have now been fried forever.

Unless the examiner suffers some sort of temporary total mental breakdown whilst marking my particular paper, well, I’ve no hope of passing the exam I sat today. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be a big deal, I would simply study harder (or concoct some excellent cheating tactics) between now and August and sit the repeat examination. Unfortunately for me, the repeat exams take place on the same week as my wedding…

Under normal circumstances, even this wouldn’t be a big problem, so long as the exam wasn’t the day of the wedding (or the day after), I would just take a few hours out of the wedding preparations and go sit the exam. Unfortunately for me, my wedding is taking place abroad, I won’t even be in the country the week of the wedding.

This effectively means I’ve just failed the entire year.

Fuck it.