Just to keep people informed, I had my first exam today. It turns out that actually two and a half days are enough to own a 24-lecture course: day one, read notes through for first time and do questions on sheets likely to come up; day two, learn content; day three, brush up on material and sit exam. Clearly the people who went to the lectures, did the sheets in Michaelmas, and started revising early were onto a good thing. In all seriousness, the status is that some last-minute intensive work is pulling the courses together, just about. Analysis was fine today, and I just completed the paper in time. With an average of 2 days already spent revising each remaining subject, and twelve days to go, I am now expecting to pull through, though some exams ought to be better written than today and show me up.

The plus side is that I know Analysis now very much better than previously, and with my memory I’ve locked a good number of very nice theorems and proofs up there, and I actually understand the subject well now I’ve finished working through Bollobás. Indeed, in previous years, I started revising earlier, and focussed more on the sheets and the course, and I’m rather preferring looking instead at the subject, and with a bit more intensity and adrenaline. Corol.—I hope not to be too tired to do the exams well, because I’ve not made much calculation for that.

I also took a sleeping pill last night, and it worked at getting me a few extra hours sleep. I’m extremely against those sorts of things usually, but it’s a pretty harmless thing, basically a deliberately drowsy hayfever tablet (antihistamine), enough to turn the two or three hours awake in bed I’ve been having recently into about half an hour. It’s not stress, just so many things whirling in my very active brain. Exercise hasn’t been helping, nor anything. I’m only planning to use them just before exams.