August 31, 2024
by Althea Nicole N. Leoncito
Jack can never convince himself of his purpose to bring Christmas to people when it is clear it was Santa’s job in the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas. So does August. It never balked from its responsibility to fulfill its days as though it was a prison escapee. As it does, we glimpse another student’s horror besides oral recitations. Oral recitations are merciful. It can be altered. You can unpack it – gradually tailor your answers into a relatable one but not the point.
“Expound how distraction, as a human factor, can impede the maintenance shift turnover?”
The trick is to reply by emphasizing the importance of distraction in its entirety. It is a viable answer but one that is not the solution. It does not answer the question because it is specific: ‘It inquires on the explicit effect of a factor’. Thus, a loophole we can serve. To make it more plausible, incite emotions and idiomatic language and maybe you can walk away with your tail intact.
It is the exams that petrify us. We cannot argue ourselves to safety in this one. It never horrified me in high school because performance-based outputs were most vital to acquiring a high grade. Now in this institution, exams determine your standing. It is half of your grade in the preliminaries, midterms, and semi-finals. Worse comes to worst, finals are sixty percent (60%) in the computation of semestral grade.
Except that is not the worst, it is the process or the event in place. The unnerving distance of the chairs and strict movements from which you will likely hold your breath underwater. The tension from the eagle-eyed proctors, from your classmates that gasp every moment they feel inclined to, and from the ones that can hum without a care in the world. The latter is either a genius or blithe; can be provoking because it is demoralizing. It produces frightening infectious ideas to just flunk the exam.
Actual exams are as unpredictable as one’s personality otherwise, the professors’ personality. They can be characterized as nicer multiple choice questions, enumeration, and identification to a ruthless lot of case analyses, calculations, and problem statements. The former is still in debate as options in multiple choice questions wear a ghillie suit and everything else is modified. Accomplishing the dynamic standard indeed.
But it can only be as unforgiving if we are not ready. Preparations have made wondrous miracles in confrontations. It has weathered storms by revealing its weaknesses and strengths. It’s most vulnerable that opens an opportunity to hit the hardest and its power from which we can create a barricade to spend its brunt on, and more ideas. Such ideas are most powerful and if we can equip our minds with the greatest things, then we can act and do more.
Needless to say, we can expect the unexpected. If you have read a multitude of crime documentaries and novels, then you have credible resources for prevention- getting involved in one. If you have read romance literature, you have poetic methods of wooing someone. If you have read psychology and well-being books, you can empathize with someone and heal yourself just as easily (help yourself). If you have read fiction and fantasies, you have a reprieve from the burdens of reality. If you have read histories, you have more reason to believe that there is change.
“Five minutes in an old book quickly reveals that most of what is being sold today as new insights into human behavior is merely the rediscovery of knowledge we have had for centuries. To learn things not yet rediscovered, you must read old books.” – Roy H. Williams
Everything is written. We need only to recognize it.