And so the nightmare begins. Prelim marking is going to make me look back over the next two weeks and remark that I once had a life. A lovely stack of essays await their fate as I turn Freddy Kruger again and hack and slash until I am waist deep in mire and gore. I think we've been here before. Deja vous.

I think just to motivate myself, I'll run a daily scoresheet on the number of essays I've marked. It'll be inspiring to see this figure advance as my stack regresses. But in the meantime, I'll also be dealing with assorted distractions like sleep and meals. I guess this is the only way we tutors can keep you company as you struggle through this difficult period. We comiserate through mutual suffering. Fair?

Did the statue thing again today as I will be doing another three more times in the next two weeks. I modelled for "Stamford Raffles (standard)","lout and lampost", "slut at her dresser" and "Buddha's meditation on a writing surface." Too bad there weren't any AEP students around to immortalize me in an 'A' Level sculpture submission. Invigilation in 03-49 is not a pleasant thing. The room looks smaller than the others and when the students bring their belongings in and place them along the front and side walls, there's hardly any space left to walk. It becomes claustrophobic and it gets worse when the first few bars of "Heart of Gold," by Johnny Hates Jazz, starts repeating over and over in your mind for no apparent reason. I was thankful to Mei Lian who subbed me for 25 minutes each paper, and for some mindless administration that shut Johnny up for a while.

> Initializing 'Marked Essay Scoresheet'...
> ... Initialized
>
> Tally 'Marked Essay Scoresheet'...
> Number of Essays marked today = 0
> Cumulative Total = 0

>sigh< I'd better get started.

Edit 01:
8 hours later...

> Today's tally = 5
> Cumulative total = 5

Well, it's a start, I suppose.