****

I am actually crying. It's a long time since I properly cried. I couldn't cry when I got the residue of chilli peppers on my contact lenses, and needed to irrigate it. I couldn't cry when I hated my flatmate to the point of wishing her dead (I don't, and I realise in hindsight it was an aspect of my mental illness rearing its head, but thoughts are thoughts). Yet I just got my exam results and my eyes are like fountains.

Not because I failed.

Not because I passed.

But because I got the best exam results I have EVER recieved, including full marks on our 30 credit (normal modules are only 20) module exam.

I've been home nearly half an hour. Known for more than thirty minutes that I passed, that I far exceeded by own expectations, even my own hopes.

Yet my eyes will not stop gushing. I cannot stop (quietly) bawling to myself. It is part relief. Tonight was the Medical Ball, and all night people from my year have been stopping by at our table to chat, and the main topic is "Are you celebrating?". Our results weren't supposed to be out til Tuesday, due to yet another clerical administration error, yet when I left theatres at 5pm(a very long story) I had a text screaming that results were up online.

I couldn't bear to check. To know again that I'd passed, but not by the margin I wished for. Not by the margins I needed to pull my (absymal) average up to something worthy of my efforts. So I went to the ball with no results. Told enquirers I figured I passed (so far, anecdotally only two people have failed, out of nearly two hundred) but wasn't gonna waste my night by being disappointed by the scores.

Got in past 1am. Drunk, tired, sore. Thought checking while drunk would be easier to bear than sober.

I didn't even want to check then. Wanted to put a hoodie over my pj's and curl up in bed. Check later. Maybe never. If an email arrives asking for a meeting, I failed. If not, pass. Despite my laptop sensing this, and three times ignoring the uni website link, or closing the tab, somehow the results page ended up open.

With a 17 and a 20. Out of 20.


Turns out that celebrating alone in the darkness of our sleepy flat (1 asleep, potentially newly engaged, 1 whoring herself out on the town) is lonely. But ok. The boyfriend has been texted. The new flatmate has been texted. I want so badly to call my parents but I think a 2am phonecall is usually badly recieved...

Every online msn buddy (ok, so the only online msn buddy) is being bombarded instead.

Bang goes my interesting tale of the registrar stabbing the consultant with a k-wire....