Glitter

In my job I am a hyprocrite. At school I was one of those kids that I am conditioned into disliking. I went to school roughly 65% of the time in my penultimate year, even less in my final year, and still I got the highest mark in the country for two exam papers. Today, as an assessment training excercise, I sat an A Level paper and was graded. Despite being the only one out of 22 teachers not to plan my literature answer, I finished the paper in 14 minutes and got the highest mark by an embarassingly long way. Do I sound immodest? I certainly don't mean to. It's nothing to be proud of.

Some people are put on this earth to do great works. Homer's Odessy, Kant's leisurely musings, Woolf's social observations: such things are the product of extensive and probing thought. Of hours spent pondering, considering, owning the era in which these ideas were constructed. Me? Lord knows I can pass an exam. My great purpose, my ultimate role in life, my area of expertise is simple...I wing it.

Today I sat curled up and blushing as a fellow educator angrily disputed my high grade (awarded by an independent task moderator) as wholly "unfair". And I couldn't disagree. Yes, it was unfair, what what was I to do? I didn't plan. I wrote in the scrawl of post-torture Fawkes. I wrote about two thirds of the quantity produced by other "students". All I did differently was that which, it seemed, the majority failed to do: I read (and answered) the question. Yet, and I knew I would, I still did it. I still surpassed. I think today I surprised even myself...woah.

This means that in my job I am a hypocrite. I nag, I beg and I plead with my students to plan. Read the question. Plan your answer. Yes, you can use a spider diagram; in fact, please do! Whatever works. I said write a damn plan. Is your 15 minutes plan time up yet? Didn't think so, so right now I should be seeing no "Steinbeck, in his 1937 novel, explores the..." on your page, should I? Didn't think so.

Ugh. The stench of my own hypocrisy turns my stomach.

Winging it does not stop at the decisive tip of an examiner's pen, however. Oh no. Winging it extends to all areas of life. I've winged managing to not die, against most odds, on more than one occasion. I've winged job interviews (by manipulating my words), dance auditions (by being thin and flexible with a passion for rhythm if not for rehearsal), and I once even winged a whole return train journey from Glasgow to London because in one direction I was 'asleep' and in the other I wore just the right amount of mascara to engineer and execute 'operation flutter' at just the right moment.

I do try, though. I really do. I could probably have failed that paper today, I think, had I tried hard enough.

Is my ultimate destiny to be a fluke? Actually, don't answer that.