Sherlock Holmes had his pipe. Dorothy had her red shoes. Batman had his Batmobile. If we asked your friends what object they most immediately associate with you, what would they answer?

I have my purple shirt, a shirt I always wear when I’m having an exam. It has been three years for me to wear this shirt, twice a month, sometimes more when I had multiple exams on the medical school. It was nothing exceptional though, it is just a plain purple shirt with pocket on the left chest, which I usually slipped my 22 years old silver MontBlanc pen. It has become a symbol for me and some of my friends that I’m having an exam that day. I would pair it with black trousers and plain blue moccasin, and I’m ready for the day.

What’s quite unique is I always wear it and I never, never even once didn’t passed the test. I would always passed the exam, sometimes with high score and few times with at least the minimum benchmark. I don’t want to get superstitious about it because I don’t want to be failing when I don’t wear the shirt, but I just feel weird (or perhaps blessed).

Even after some time has passed, some of my friends start to have their own “exam shirt” and habitually use it on the exam day, weird huh?

dp