Thursday 6th April 1995.

Yesterday we finished our exams. And it was the most bizarre feeling. While some people were obviously relieved to be done with the exams, I felt like it was all an anti climax. There was, I must say, a hastily wiped tear as I wrote the last paragraph in that General Paper exam. For it suddenly dawned on me that this was it. This was in a way a passage to adulthood. No more was I a kid, a child. I was now expected to be grown up. Expected to act responsibly and in a few months time, hopefully go to Campus (The University).

The examination period has been a blur. I hardly got any sleep as every waking moment I felt could have been used to read up on one subject or the other. I managed just a few hours every night waking up with a start several times a night worried about the examinations next day. The other thing that unnerved me is that there is a student who I shares the same room with me. He has been doing science subjects while I have done Arts. He seemed to be reading all the time. I thought his bed saw a lot less of him while I paid ample attention to mine.

During the exams themselves, the furious writing of the other students was, for some reason, not as bad as I had feared. I furiously wrote as well and asked for more paper. Oh yes. I found the secret of long essays; be verbose! And I double spaced and any point that I wanted to make I did so in two long paragraphs. It was great! I did not feel like I have done before when I have felt inadequate and unable to keep up.

Once I have been told a story of a student who was absolutely caught out in an examination paper. The poor girl could not answer any of the questions. So she wrote a sweet letter to the examiner explaining that she was pregnant and her family did no know. She had had no time to read before the exams so she wrote herself some simple questions and answered them. Classic!

I was very anxious thought the period as for some reason I felt like I had got a brain lock on all that I have been taught in the last two years. But then maybe I have just not been paying that much attention in class. it’s the little things that I felt I should have known that kept failing me. A friend, Ben, the other day came to ask me about some facts about the First World War. To my horror ( and I guess his) I could not at that moment even recall the year it started. The sweat from my brow was a sight to behold.

But its all done with now and I feel relaxed. I am through with all that and I do hope that the future is bright. I am sad though that I may not see some of my friends again. Its strange. When we finished our O’level exams, there was the expectation that we would see each other again at A’ level. No one, or at least I did not think otherwise. A good number of our friends did not come back to that great college but those that went back like me did not really feel sad for the others who did not make it. I wonder why?

However, I am now at home. It’s the beginning of S6 vacation. Six months of being idle and dreaming of the freedom that going to Campus (the University) will bring. The booze and girls from other schools. Fresher’s week. All that is to come however I have just been given paperwork to fill in for a new passport. I am going to visit the United Kingdom to spend my vacation there. I have never been anywhere in the world and surely this is going to be something to enjoy.

Diary extracts as told by Arthur Mwenkanya Katabalwa

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