On Wednesday i sat the final exam for my maths unit, having spent the greater part of the previous several days revising for it.
It went badly.
This was the first 3-hour exam i've sat since developing CFS1. During the semester i did several 45-minute online tests, and one 1.5 hour online test, and handled those reasonably well. But about halfway through the exam, i felt my ability to focus dropping off considerably. i tried taking a couple of breaks - first a shorter one, then a longer one - but that made no difference. i was reading questions that i fundamentally knew i could do, but my brain just couldn't process them well enough to actually let me do so. Many people are familiar with the experience of reading the same sentence several times over before realising that one hasn't actually read the sentence at all; this was like that.
So i had to give up. It was most upsetting, particularly given that i'd achieved reasonably good marks for the assignments and tests during the semester.
On the advice of![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sacred_harlot, i went to the university Equality and Diversity Centre, where i'd previously registered as having a condition that impacted my studies. They gave me paperwork for me to apply for special consideration, which was good, but repeatedly semi-misgendered2 me whilst doing so, which was bad, and which i wasn't in a fit state to take up. As the paperwork needed to be lodged within 72 hours of the exam, i spent yesterday going to the doctor to get medical support for the paperwork in question, and then lodging it at uni. Thankfully the public transport system was kind to me, and it wasn't as tiresome as it could have been (and indeed has been in the past); but i was still knackered by the end of the day.
What happens from here - whether i'll be able to resit the exam, for example, and whether i'll be able to do it in two sessions if so - i have no idea. The exam counts for 75% of my mark, so it's quite possible that, if my application for special consideration is rejected, i'll fail the unit. Hopefully it won't come to that.
1. Or whatever the currently acceptable name for it is.
2. i say "semi-misgendered" because whilst referring to me as a man and using male pronouns is technically correct, since i'm bigendered, i'm pretty sure that in this instance such language was based on being read as a cis male in a dress.
It went badly.
This was the first 3-hour exam i've sat since developing CFS1. During the semester i did several 45-minute online tests, and one 1.5 hour online test, and handled those reasonably well. But about halfway through the exam, i felt my ability to focus dropping off considerably. i tried taking a couple of breaks - first a shorter one, then a longer one - but that made no difference. i was reading questions that i fundamentally knew i could do, but my brain just couldn't process them well enough to actually let me do so. Many people are familiar with the experience of reading the same sentence several times over before realising that one hasn't actually read the sentence at all; this was like that.
So i had to give up. It was most upsetting, particularly given that i'd achieved reasonably good marks for the assignments and tests during the semester.
On the advice of
sacred_harlot, i went to the university Equality and Diversity Centre, where i'd previously registered as having a condition that impacted my studies. They gave me paperwork for me to apply for special consideration, which was good, but repeatedly semi-misgendered2 me whilst doing so, which was bad, and which i wasn't in a fit state to take up. As the paperwork needed to be lodged within 72 hours of the exam, i spent yesterday going to the doctor to get medical support for the paperwork in question, and then lodging it at uni. Thankfully the public transport system was kind to me, and it wasn't as tiresome as it could have been (and indeed has been in the past); but i was still knackered by the end of the day.What happens from here - whether i'll be able to resit the exam, for example, and whether i'll be able to do it in two sessions if so - i have no idea. The exam counts for 75% of my mark, so it's quite possible that, if my application for special consideration is rejected, i'll fail the unit. Hopefully it won't come to that.
1. Or whatever the currently acceptable name for it is.
2. i say "semi-misgendered" because whilst referring to me as a man and using male pronouns is technically correct, since i'm bigendered, i'm pretty sure that in this instance such language was based on being read as a cis male in a dress.
