Break! What Break?

Although its name does not specifically imply a holiday, you would naturally assume that 'half-term' was some kind of break from the continual grind of arduous college life. Nope. Here in Liverpool, our tutors have been specifically informed by the governors of the school to lay on as much work as possible to keep our tired little minds churning away throughout the whole of February.

In reality, half-terms were designed by the government as a means of cost cutting across the country. Some distant and probably now deceased Chancellor of the Exchequer was told by the equally dead Prime Minister to save money on Education. My bet it went something like this:

"I have a cunning plan, Prime Minister," chuckled the Chancellor hysterically.
"What's that PM-wannabe?" answered the Prime Minister.
"We will send all of the children home once a term, and call it 'half-term'! That way, we can set them lots of work over the holiday. They'll still be educated to the same standard, because teachers these days are just like having none whatsoever and then we'll save a bundle of money. Less teachers to employ, less utility bills to pay, schools can be rented out for rock concerts and WI days and we'll have more money to spend on invading other countries," the Chancellor rabbled on, some drool coming from the side of his mouth.
"Brilliant, I like it Chancellor," smiled the PM.
"Now can I be Prime Minister?" he pleaded.
"No," scorned his nemesis.

So, to sum up, I have the following work to complete over the week:
Business Studies coursework (approx. 3 hours)
Business Studies exam revision (approx. 2 hours)
English essay (approx. 2 hours)
Read Of Mice and Men for English revision (approx. 2 hours)
Geography coursework- all of it! (approx. 5 hours)
Physics Challenge revision and practice papers (approx. 3 hours)
Physics coursework (approx. 2 hours)
Additional Maths revision (approx. 2 hours)
Teach myself Chemistry GCSE and complete coursework -teacher is downright lazy- (approx. 5 hours)
Biology homework and revision (approx. 2 hours)
Citizenship homework, coursework and revision (approx. 2 hours)

Total learning/revision/coursework time: 30 HOURS

Divide this by 9 days and you get 3 hours and 20 minutes of work each day. It might not sound like much when reading this. Then you have to introduce the fact that I have to collect a 6 year old brother from school each week-day (his half-term was last week) and cook the God-damn diner. It suddenly becomes a whole different affair. I have only just found enough time to write this post in between boiling potatoes and watching my sole 1/2 hour of television a day. Perhaps the tutors never considered that we might like to relax somewhat before the real manic build up to exams starts. I am dreading it. I felt completely emotionally drained last year after taking just 2 GCSEs early (French and Maths). I cannot wait until the summer, breezing down the open road - to the job centre. I still intend to continue with A-levels next year but really need a job over the summer to finance an Digital-SLR camera. We all have our financial targets. Jingo's is nearly three times mine. He is gaging for a £1,500 Apple MacBook Pro. I already have a laptop but he already has a decent camera. Does this mean he will have to work triple shifts down at the local Tesco? As long as I don't have to its fine by me.