I was going to take a nap before dinner and then study at night. I turned off the light and went to bed. A few minutes later, I heard my mum shouted my name from the kitchen, ' Sze Wai! Sze Wai!' I was so tired and did not response. Until I saw my mum rushed into my bedroom grabbing her right hand with her left hand, and said, 'I cut my thumb! I have to go to hospital immediately!' Seeing the bloods on her hand, I realised something serious happened. I jumped off the bed and grabbed a pair of trousers near me. I didn't have time to change my whole pajamas. I only changed my trousers and had no time to comb my hair. I must look very absurd at that time. That night was the first time I did not think of my examination during the study period of the HKCEE.
Under the old education system, every Secondary 5 student in Hong Kong had to take a public examination, the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (HKCEE) in order to get into Secondary 6. This was very important since there were only one-third of the students could continue their study. Different from the university entry examination in Korea, this examination lasted not only for a day but a month.
Everybody was under huge stress. Students were not the only victims. Stress affected their families as well; in my family, HKCEE was the elephant in the room. We talked about everything except it; my dad still joked a lot as usual; everything seemed normal. However, the fact was we had just pretended to be normal. During that time, no matter how lazy the students were, their had nothing else to do except study as they had nowhere to go to and no one to play with. Even though sometimes we wanted to get some rest and hung out with our friends, we were not able to call them since we were afraid that we might interrupt their study.
We rushed down the street and took a taxi. I sat in the backseat with my mother. I looked at her thumb closely. Her thumb had already turned purple in colour since she was grabbing it so hard. Blood was clotting on her hand. She looked so painful. I was frustrated, as I could do nothing to help her with that. I could think of nothing but her. I even forgot I had a mathematics examination next day.
When we arrived, we went straight to the emergency room. We waited for a while and finally there was a nurse came to see how serious the injury was and gave my mum some basic treatment before she would be assigned to a doctor. At that moment, I suddenly felt very dizzy and could see nothing but darkness. My head was hurt and I could barely stand by myself. The nurse said coldly, ' Miss, if you are not able to see blood, just go somewhere else and wait' and my mum said so as well. I sat down on a chair and took some rest with my eyes closed. I knew that I was not afraid of blood; I collapsed from getting relief from highly intense stress.
After we went back to home, my mum was very sorry for bringing me this trouble right before the day of an examination. She concerned that whether I could focus on studying after this. I kept saying that I was okay but I was actually not. I could not focus and I could not sleep. I felt not right for doing anything until one of my friends suddenly called me. I told him what happened today and I burst into tears. After I cried for a few minutes and chatted with my friend, I finally felt much better and went to sleep.
Although I was a bit distracted during the examination as I kept thinking about my mother, I did all right. When I came back home, my mum was waiting for me in the living room. 'How was the examination going?' she asked. The elephant in my house was gone. 'No worries. It went well.' I smiled and replied. After this incident, I figured out that the best way to deal with stress is not to pretend it is not there but to face the real problem and try to release our true feelings and emotions. Talking to friends is a great thing to do. It is okay not to be okay.
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