I'll explain the situation, for those who don't remember or have not yet experienced the horror of exams. A large room is used at my school, big enough to fit about one hundred people comfortably. We wait outside to be let in, and the supervisor then opens the door and lets us in. We must be quiet. We cannot talk.

It sounds like I'm describing gas chambers.

The desks are set out across the room in rows with two paths running parallel to each other and perpendicular to the two main doors, which are set at the back of the room on the right and left hand sides. At the desks are our papers. We have the exam paper, writing paper and scrap paper. One exam, two to five sheets of writing paper and one piece of scrap paper. We also have our name, surname then first name, on color coded pieces of card. Physics students have the light blue while the psychos have red. It makes it easier to have more than one subject in the same room.

The room is silent. Totally quiet. Nothing. No pens on paper, no words, no breathing, not even the ticking of the clock that sucks our time away. Everything starts as soon as I enter. It starts as soon as I put my dictionary and pencil case and calculator and drink bottle down on the desk.

Everything must be neat. Perpendicular to everything else. My dictionary sits just there near the edge and my drink bottle, thank God it's not round, can sit a safe distance away in the other corner. Everything is at right angles, it must be, or I will fail.

Do not put your elbows on the desk. Lean, crouch, dig your arms into the corners of the table but the elbows cannot touch the desk. Or I will fail.

Open the pencil case once and do not close it until it is over. Do not close it half way through. Do not put everything away and then realize that you missed a question and open it up. No. Don't. Or I will fail.

Don't get up. Toilet, vomiting, death. It doesn't matter. Don't leave your seat. Or I will fail.

The scrap paper can be used, no rules there, but when you leave it has to be folded in half and then into thirds. Perfect thirds. Not about about a quarter then make it look like thirds. Perfect thirds. Put it in your pencil case. Or I will fail.

Name piece must remain on the desk during the exam. It cannot be drawn on or folded. Before I leave it has to go into my pencil case. Or I will fail.

Exam superstitions are silly, but then so are exams. And superstitions are only there to make you feel better if you felt that watching Dexter was much more important than studying. Because then, if I screw up, it's not the late nights or the long not-study related conversations, it's because I opened my pencil case twice in the thing. Or my folding wasn't perfect.

And acting like this is fun. I get strange stares from the supervisors when I carefully arrange my desk with ninety degree angles everywhere.