Patience...

If patience is a virtue, clearly then, I am not very virtuous. That’s fine with me – virtuous does sound like it might be a bit boring. Impatience, however, is perhaps a curse. Birthdays, Christmas Day, and of course results day, bring out the worst in me. It all boils down to the fact that I hate surprises. I like to know what presents are before I open them. I am the person who sits by the Christmas tree, constantly rearranging presents, poking and feeling them, and if I had an X-ray machine I would be using it. Quite often I will simply put myself out of my mystery by sneakily opening the present and re-wrapping, happy then to know there will be no shocks on Christmas morning when I might accidentally do the wrong face when I open it. Silly really, because if there is a present I really hate, then the person really won’t know – and maybe they will carry on buying me stuff I don’t like. But I would rather that than people think that I am ungrateful. Usually though, ignoring the cardigan I had a couple of years ago which was so immense my son and daughter-in-law could both fit into it at the same time with room to spare, the presents people buy me are lovely. Especially now my husband has got over his novelty clock obsession.

But this time of year is torture for me. Not only am I crossing the days off till Christmas and my Birthday which is in January, it’s results week. The message has been up on my student home page for weeks now. 12th December. Or rather “by 12th December”. That could mean 11th. What it definitely means is that for the last week I have been checking on the hour every hour in the day time. I haven’t yet resorted to getting up in the middle of the night. Yet.

I know I could wait till Friday and log-on then, but it’s just like the oddly shaped present I’ve had from my mother-in-law that feels like it might be chocolate, but smells a bit like soap. I need to KNOW now. If the result is a nasty shock rather than a lovely surprise, I need to be able to adopt the stoic face that suggests I knew all along I made a pig’s ear of the exam, and anyway, I’d just love the chance to re-sit the exam and spend another couple of months revising. Sadly though, the reality is, I am not THAT good an actress.