what am i, fifteen?

i am twenty five years old and i still get test anxiety (not to be confused with text anxiety, which is what i just typed there three times). i would have thought that i would have outgrown it by now, particularly when being examined on something i am fairly certain of my abilities in, like photoshop. which i've been using fairly steadily for, oh, the last EIGHT YEARS. but no. the anxiety, she leaps in, jamming my brain into neutral and making the simplest tasks feel impossible.

the real kicker is that i know i am absolutely capable of forcing a sense of calm upon myself; i mean, i had to have gotten through the SATs somehow. it's just that doing so does have its downside, usually manifested by such strong feelings of calmness that i work in slow motion; good when i'm checking figures, not so good when i'm trying to perfect within one hour 300 square inches of layout in a program i don't yet know in my sleep, as i discovered during the first test.

my foray into self-calming meant that i managed to get through the test without twitching myself into oblivion; it also meant that i completed just over half of the test in my prescribed hour.

i don't think i've ever turned in anything half-finished in my life.

i was utterly mortified until the receptionist, taking pity on me, confided that everyone at the office knows bloody well that the document we're supposed to make during the test takes at least two and a half hours to complete, so it's an extremely small percentage that actually finish. despite the reassurance, my failure to complete the first test blew my last shreds of reserve out the window, and so by the time i sat down for the second test i was a wreck.

"you want me to what? and the where? and what's with the layer mask? and why is that red? and you want me to save HOW often? and...wait a minute."

i was cautioned by the instructions to save early, save often, which i attempted to comply with at every turn; ctrl-s became a kind of talisman, a calming influence, a good luck charm....the harbinger of the news that the computer i was using was utterly fucked and could i come back next week to finish up?

awwww, yeah.

that's right. i was given a reprieve to grab a smoke and go lurk sullenly behind the music building instead of taking that stupid exam go get my head back together, erase the specter of test one and come back fresh to kick ass and take names.

*ahem*