So I finally decided to post the truth about what happened in and after my French exam. This story currently resides on four pages in the back of my French book. My reasoning for this shall be revealed later. Enjoy.
The exam was terrifying. As I walked into the classroom and sat down with my paper, I was fine. Slightly nervous, I'll admit, but otherwise okay. I guess you could say I was In denial. But then I saw the list on the board. Mostly covered up, but with a small yet arrogant number one sat next to my unfortunate name.
Horrible, painful death. That's what I'd told my friends it would be. I'd been joking of course, but now I think it was more of a prediction.
Of course I panicked. I knew I would. It was all business from the moment I was called from the classroom, and I stepped into the tiny store-cupboard they called an office because it contains an outdated computer. I smiled briefly after an acknowledgement of the foam penguin I had clenched in my fist, but the knot in my stomach prevented me from making any of the witty comments I usually could have produced.
I sat down on the stool which was a good few inches taller than the desk in front of my, causing my knees to rest atop the desk. Questions? Yes. What happens if I blank out? He said he'd ask in a different way. And if I still blanked out? As a last resort, say 'je ne sais pas'. Okay.
A minute down the line, I blanked. I didn't know why I was calling for an interview at a random hotel in France. Kind of a big deal. You don't ramdomly call someone, introduce yourself, and then start listing off your favourite activities. He asked me again why I was calling. Still nothing. I umm'd and ahh'd a little, the way you would at the dentist, but nothing came to me. Silence.
"Je ne sais pas."
I exhaled. I didn't know when the last time I'd inhaled had been, but it was a large exhale. Probably sounded like a tornado on the recording.
After that, I moved on, but it only got worse. Do you do sport. I answered to a reasonable extent. I've got a feeling I mumbled a lot, but it didn't feel too bad, although of course my mind blanked again near the end of my paragraph, causing a lot of broken sentences to jump from my mouth like they were on a suicide dive. Work experience? There was a brief pause as I struggled to recall anything on the paper. What I did remember wasn't the best, and quite a lot came off the top of my head, but not a lot was said anyway. Two sentences? One long one? I didn't really speak with punctuation. I couldn't even say the funny line I had prepared at the end, even though I had it at the front of my mind.
What do I want to do in the future? Ah, this I can say. Or so I thought. I got the first two sentences out okay, but then, yup, you guessed it, mind blank. I sighed. He moved on to the mystery question. What is your telephone number? I grinned. I could do this, I hoped.
"Zero, sept, non, zero un deux trios zero, non, zero un trois zero deux, sept deux sept, trois, five..." he cut me off. Or maybe i just stopped talking. It was over, either way. I stood up, he told me it was better than the last time. I can't remember the last time, I blacked it out from my mind because it was horrifying.
Back in the classroom, I sunk deep into my seat, my head fell onto the desk with a rather loud bang, which hurt more than I care to say. I didn't realise I was crying silently until I had to lift my head. I mumbled a request to stand outside. Granted. The seconds between me getting permission to move and me being propped agains the window outside with my head pressed against the cool glass are missing. I couldn't say whether the door was already open or whether I had a battle with the curtain or tripped over the carpet like I normally do, and when I finally unclenched my fists, it took a while for me to notice that I didn't have a clue where my penguin was. It was also at this stage that I became very grateful for the existance of tissues in my pockets, and the fact that i'd stopped wearing mascara last month. It took a while to stop the tears but they had never been too drastic; I hadn't been sobbing, merely expelling a few patheticly helpless tears. A few minutes later, I deemed myself ready to go back in. I made sure there were no stray tears or inflamed eyes, using the back of the drawn curtains through the glass as a makeshift mirror, and walked back into the classroom. Avoiding everybody's staring eyes (I could tell they were staring at me and I didn't blame them) I tried my best to convince myself that looking up was a bad idea. I went searching in my bag, first for my water bottle which I emptied in under 30 seconds, and then for my homework booklet which I was fairly certain I had forgotten. I fetched a textbook from the cupboard instead, I wasn't planning on using it anyway; I knew what I needed to do. Out came my pencil case and my exercise book, and I began writing this blog post. This helped immensely. Not only dis it semi-distract me from the eyes around me, but this post preserves my memories, a document of what went wrong. I looked up drom my writing occasionally. Each time, the stand-in teacher seemed to be looking at me, looking at how much I was writing. At the end of the lesson, I hadn't finished, and when the teacher walked back in, I think he saw all of my writing, or at least a page of it. I don't know what either of them thought it was, and I can't say whether they were right or not. I found myself avoiding eye contact with him after that, although I'm not sure why. I think it was guilt. Guilt from the knowledge that I had almost certainly gotten a bad grade. Guilt for failing myself. Guilt because he know knows how utterly terrible I am at speaking exams? They're all possibilities. My mind comes up with the most irrational theories.
I'm fine now. The thought of another speaking exam still fills me with dread, but I'll survive. Hopefully. To be honest, I'd rather sit in a room full of spiders than do the next exam. Just fill that office with a hundred spiders and stick me in there for four minutes. Or ten snakes. Or creepy stalker dude. Anything. But I'll probably do the exam. It wasn't so bad.
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