having completely and royally screwed myself over for physics SPA skill A today, i was feeling rather crappy and depressed for the most part of the day after the paper. i don't really know what happened really; suddenly i just sort of had a mental block during the paper and took like half the time trying to figure out how to conduct the stupid experiment. although of course, that was in vain, because i picked the wrong variable to vary right from the start, but since my IQ blockers were on full-force during the exam, didn't suspect that at all even though i couldn't come up with any decent procedure after 20 minutes. yes; it is not humanly possible to regulate the applied force on an oscillating system, especially not when all you have are standard masses and retort stands.

anyway because of that burst of stupidity, i ended up with 15 mintues to complete 75% of the paper, including the detailed experimental procedures and precautions. so my handwriting degenerated into a doctor's scrawl and my diagram looked more like the sort of kiddy drawing you see tacked up on the fridges of proud mother's ('would you believe that my little danny can draw stick figures?! any child who can draw stick figures is going to be the next picasso! i have a prodigy on my hands!'). anyway, yes, it was a complete disaster. i doubt i can get more than 4/5 marks with the flawed experiment, and that's being wildly optimistic already. but my consolation is that there's another test for skill A 2 weeks from now, so my screw-up today may be inconsequential after all if i do well in that, since the better 2 grades are taken from 3 assesments. and i recall the first assesment last year went pretty well; what with the rapid and efficient system for information dissemination that RJ science students have in place.

oh well. better luck next time i hope :(