After lunch, my girlfriends decided to go shopping. I declined, saying I wanted to go home and study, although I ended up making a detour which involved sampling Flat White, checking out American Apparel and La Senza, before finally getting on the bus home.

But before that detour, one of my friends said, "The grouchiness will pass."

I stared at her, first in astonishment, then in relief and exclaimed, "Oh my God! Yes, I've been so incredibly grumpy for the last few weeks and I couldn't figure out why!" I had attributed it to job stress and missing friends back home with whom I could just be utterly crazy with and not have to watch what I say (given that the people I end up spending the most time with here are invariably my colleagues), and to hear someone who'd been through the same pain I'd been going through this time last year put forward an explanation as to what's been bugging me... it really did help.

This exam is really getting to me. And it may be the last of three legs and I should be happy the end is in sight, I'm just finding it so darn difficult to digest anything because it's so boring that it makes me sleep whenever I start reading about a financial valuation model, not to mention that the mathematical formulas look so complicated, I hyperventilate merely thinking about them.

Friends tell me I go through that same angst before every exam I've taken and I've always ended up passing. Now, if you've got a friend like me, don't ever tell that person that. It will only make her more stressed out that this will be the time when she finally proves herself right and everyone else wrong.

Be smart, be cool, and sympathise while she freaks out. That's all you need to do. That's all you can do, really. Just don't tell her she's being silly when this is an exam where only half the participants pass.