The SAT I experience

At last, the day I have been preparing for for about a month now has finally come. I took my SATs this morning, and although I have no idea if I did well in it, I’m quite certain that I got a score of at least 1090. According to statistics, it’s what the average American gets. I’m not an American, but I sure am an average Filipino. But I can be quite resourceful and clever at times, so I probably got a higher score than 1090. I really can’t tell though, but whatever. I’m just glad that I AM FINALLY DONE WITH THE FREAKING SATS. The experience, however, was not much fun.

My first mistake was consuming a yogurt drink before the test itself. I don’t normally eat breakfast because my stomach is always too sleepy to care during ungodly hours of the day, a.k.a. early mornings. But when I saw that I had some time to spare, I decided that I’d rather take the test with food in my belly rather than hear the noises made by my protesting tummy echo and re-echo across the quiet room. My tummy is known to make weird noises even when I’m not hungry. It’ll probably be twice as worse with an empty stomach! Thankfully, nobody but my sister has ever heard those noises, but it’s quite embarassing anyway. Talk about wa-poise (grr, I’m digressing again). So for breakfast, I reheated yesterday’s pizza. While I was munching away, I realized that I needed something to wash that pizza down my dry throat. We were out of milk (cold milk anyway), and since I couldn’t very well have Coke with breakfast, I decided I’d have some yogurt drink.

A friendly piece of advice: never drink more than 5 mL of liquid before a three-hour test. Especially if the room is freezing cold. That was my second mistake. I should’ve brought my denim jacket with me, but I was too busy worrying about the possibility of screwing up the SATs that I completely forgot. I took the test at the elementary school gym of International School Manila and it was air-conditioned and it was cold. My outfit didn’t help make things less worse; it was a hot day and I thought I’d wear my summer clothes so I wouldn’t sweat and feel uncomfortable. I had on a pair of white capri pants, a light blue transluscent top and white sandals. Well I sure didn’t sweat at all, but do you know what happens when you’ve had a yogurt drink and you’re feeling all nervous in an air-conditioned room? That’s right, you suddenly get this really strong urge to pee.

But then the moment I got to my assigned seat, I just couldn’t bring myself to go to the bathroom and pee. It’s kind of stupid, but all of a sudden I started feeling very, very self-conscious. It happens to me sometimes when I’m in a social gathering where I don’t know anyone present. I tend to be acutely aware of every single action I’m making, and then I feel as though everyone’s staring at me and snickering at the fact that I’m all alone, with no one to talk to, no one to hold onto for moral support, no one to just stand with so I don’t look as if I’m all alone (grr, this is all Chris’ fault for not re-taking the SATs today!). I know that the SATs is hardly what you’d call a social gathering, but I just wanted to sit there and be as inconspicuous as possible. Besides, I could still hold it in. No problem. I can hold it in for three more hours.

Out of nowhere, I remembered that I was wearing white capri pants, which suddenly gave way to a very horrible thought. A more horrible thought than getting an 800 on the SATs. What if I got my period right here, at this very moment? The horror! The shame! The humiliation! I had forgotten to wear a napkin that morning just in case, much less bring one! What if…? I began to feel very, very scared. Calm down, calm down… I silently told my hyperventilating self. I decided that if I should be as unlucky as to get my period while taking the SATs in white capri pants, I will just stay seated until the time is up and pray like hell that the stain won’t be huge and obvious. Fat chance of having an inconspicuous menstrual stain though; I’m wearing white.

And then the test started and all my paranoid thoughts and my self-conscious feelings flew out the window. I had little time or space in my brain to concentrate on anything else other than the best answers for the questions asked. Even if I think that my chances of getting a scholarship are very slim, I still hope that I got a good SAT score today to make up for all the effort I put in studying and of course, for my own personal glory.