Written by: Sara Amr Rifaat
This is the worst time of the year for any sane idiot who ticked the box next to the option that read “Thanaweya 3amma” (Self-included). With each passing day, this person gets to find out how much of a blood-sucking system this is. In spite of that, only 5 things can keep a Thanaweya 3amma student walk through hell and come out alive:
1-Facebook’s Thanaweya 3amma Sarcasm Society
One thing that makes misery less miserable is joking about it! The best jokes ever made, are the ones created specifically for two main topics: Thanaweya 3amma and Ahmed ezz’s oksem bellah mawlady.
But seriously, if these jokes can make you crack up a laugh while reciting some political geography or handling a physics equation that won’t solve itself, then they sure as hell are good jokes! Enjoy that pleasure before one parent walks in and takes away your phone!
2-Mohamed Moula’s Videos
A lot of viners have paved their way in the social media world, but being a former Thanaweya 3amma warrior, Moula stands out! He knows how to make one hell of a video; he knows his audience! Who else would make up a study schedule for students that involves hours of visiting the toilet, walking in the hallway, and staring at the ceiling? Who else would hang his geology book by the door knob to torture it? These are all things that all of us can relate to. Personally, this big guy got me through a lot of bad times.
3-Private Lessons, “share3 el center, khansaret el floos”
When private lessons become a routine, you start getting more comfortable in centers than at home. You start having your own private lessons-buddies, whom you attend lessons with, and also get kicked out with. You become friends with the teachers’ assistants; you get used to the uncomfortable seats, the unbelievable crowds, the routine of just standing in the street by the center’s door staring into nothingness. You get to enjoy some privileges, like telling your parents the lesson costs 50 LE when it’s only for 30 LE so you can keep the difference. Yeah, we all did that at some point!
4- Senior Year With Your School Friends
At some point, when you are so close to the end, you’ll finally realize what everyone has been bragging about for so long; that these are the best days of your life. When it’s winter and cold…you’ll never get to wear your pj’s underneath your outfit in college, which was totally okay in school! You’ll not always have the opportunity to nap in the middle of a lecture like you used to at school. It won’t be okay anywhere else to be messy, childish or loud like you were at school. Your worst and most comfortable habits at school will stay there. When the truth hits you, that’s when you realize that without your friends, who always have gum, know how to get kicked out of class, and can make you laugh your heart out…you wouldn’t have survived it. It’s like we are all canoeing in an almost but not definitely sinking boat. Without the comfort that comes with the fact that “we are all in this together”, we wouldn’t have reached the shore.
5-Food (3 AM studying snacks and coffee)
At some point in Thanaweya 3amma, when the caffeine was screwing my brain, I believed the person who invented coffee knew that somewhere out there…some students are up all night being tortured to death. Coffee is a life-savior but not on an empty stomach! We all rewarded ourselves with food when we had to sit down and study for long hours. We all had: The 27 sandwiches (snack meal), the multiple lunch breaks, and all the chocolates (in the hope that happiness hormones could fix what time has ruined! This is the time where everyone is terrified to comment about your weight-gain, thinking you’ll probably eat them if they do!
So when it’s Ramadan, and everyone is making schedules for TV-series while you are doing a studying-schedule, just eat your misery away! And if they are all loud and laughing while they watch TV, you have my blessing to kill them and the court will definitely understand.
Just one more tip! Hear it from a former Thanaweya 3amma survivor, when it’s all over, don’t ever throw away the exams schedule. On the contrary, hang it on your wall, so you look at it whenever something bad happens to you. Because God! everything feels so solvable compared to this vicious schedule. Trust me, it works for me! Like a magic trick!
