I'm not meant to be blogging until my exams are over, but I couldn't help share this news story.

Scientists have invented a semi-conductor that can use sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen and do so more cheaply and efficiently than covnentional methods. This makes hydrogen fuel that little bit more of a realistic possibility.

What had me excited though is this was done where my dad works. (Yes, he's a scientist. Must be where I get my boffin-like tendencies from). For years that place was famous only for inventing the plastic that washing up bowls are made of and now they've done something a little more environmentally friendly. HURRAH!

(dad isn't part of the team who did this. He plays with lasers all day and drinks lots of coffee but he does work at the same institute)

When I was little, mum and I used to pick him up from work and we'd wait downstairs for him. in the lobby downstairs was all manner of weird things but most intriguingly,  a large container of water. Large and deep enough for a child (such as myself) to swim in comfortably but not big enough for grown ups to do the same. It was about 2-3 times the size of a bath. I always wondered what is for so one day, I asked. Dad explained it was for emergencies. If a fellow scientist in the building were to accidentally set themselves on fire or get covered in a burning chemical, they're to run downstairs and throw themselves into this pool.

Despite my sincerest hopes and wishing really really hard everytime we went there to wait for dad, this never happened.

exams are horrible, aren't they. I mean, anyone who tells me they actually rather enjoy the exam had better duck before my right fist goes flying into their left molars. I do know someone who was at the exam who would say just this sort of thing, someone who usually gets around 98.5% in the exam but I made a point of avoiding him and pretending I was invisible. I thought it best, since dentistry is so expensive these days.

The exam was three hours. Actually that's not quite correct. It was actually 2 months of intense revision, making notes, losing notes, creating mind maps (or at least, that's what I called my weird line-and-bubble drawings), having GL test me on concepts, names, theories and discussions, (although mostly he just criticised my handwriting, and I learned one thing - I can practically memorise a page of mind maps by remembering their physical locations on the page. that doesn't say much for my understanding of the psychological concepts but it means I can regurgitate facts and figures on demands by thinking "now what was in the top left hand corner next to Piaget's 3 mountains experiment?" )

Then it was three weeks of bad sleep, 2 hours of butterflies, 1 hour of disconcerting serenity and calm and then the actual exam, which was three hours of sitting in a room, listening to the delicate sound of biros scribbling on paper as other people produced works demonstrating their great erudition while I idly chewed a pen, trying to remember what was in the top left hand corner next to Piaget and having the funny feeling it began with a P... or D or a T or at least had a T in it. I think.

The worst part is that beginning bit. You're sat down, the invigilator is going through the procedure - fire exits, what to do if you need more paper, what to do if you've finished early, what to do if you need to ring the Samaritans midway through (not allowed apparently) and you can see the exam paper in front of you. the questions it currently hides might be the one chapter you know lots about or one of the others where you're more than a bit shaky and will have to blag a bit.

"you may begin"

Those three words then to cause my brain to crash. Where before I had been a human being able to communicate and think and construct ideas, now I am reduced to something with the intellect of a rubber duck, only less articulate. I read all the questions. I must answer one from each of three sections but all of them seem equally bad. I can think of a few things with each but enough to write an essay?

ok, the first I wrote a near-ok essay. For the second hour I wrote another fairly decent essay with a bit of a rubbish conclusion and then I attempted the seen question. The easy-peasy one. We had all been sent this question some weeks ago and were to prepare an essay for it. What I did was read the relevant chapter two days before, had skim-read the peer-reviewed articles and scribbled down some notes on them and then put together an essay plan and wrote a rehearsal. It meant I knew what I was going to say, where in the essay it would go, how it linked with the other points and finished with a damn fine conclusion. What happened in the exam though was a total shambles. I completely incoherent jumble of points, vital evidence glossed over and a conclusion that said nothing. What happened?! Where did my plan go? Nothing like a grand finale to make you feel worthless at the exam, eh.

Now I have to wait until December for my results. Hopefully I'll have forgotten all about it by the time the letter arrives.