If all goes according to plan this should be my last day of studying (for this degree, at least). Of course there is no guarantee that things will go according to plan.
By lunch time tomorrow I will be free to anxiously await my results.
And for the first time all week it is actually appropriate weather for studying. Rather than a beautiful warm, sunny day beckoning you to leave your desk and go outside, today is grey and rainy and perfect for making you not feel so bad about the fact that you have to stay inside and study.
Thursday, 30 October 2008
Wednesday, 29 October 2008
2 days left- and 3 exams down!
Well, I am now 3 quaters of the way through my exams so you might think that I should be happy about that, but I'm not. Well I would be happy about it, but I didn't have a very enjoyable experience in the exam.
This was probably the hardest exam I have ever had over the last 3 years of uni. The lecturer insists on not asking questions that relate to major concepts that he spent more than 5 minutes of a lecture talking about - instead he asks questions about things he spent 1 slide and 2 minutes on and expects you to be able to write a 30 min essay on it. And some how he managed to completely forget that the guest lecturer from the IWC wasnt able to come this year and asked a question about the IWC in the exam anyway.
Thankfully there was some internal choice in the exam so you could choose questions that you knew a smidgen about rather than having to do questions you knew absolutely nothing about. I actually did one of the 3omin questions based entirely on knowledge from 2 of my courses last semester as we only covered it for 3 minutes this semester. My friend Tori did one of the 3o minute questions purely from a course she did in first year because, again, we didn't cover that topic in class.
I should have passed the stupid thing, though. (should being the operative word in that sentence).
Of course it does not help that I feel really unwell today. I don't know why. I felt quite a bit unwell yesterday when I was trying to study but I pretended that it was only going to last for a day and so I tried to convince myself that it wasn't going to be that bad.
Now I feel like during my exam a chemical reaction occured in my brain turning it slowly into a viscous substance not unlike marshmellow. Then this strange viscous greyish, marshmellow ran out my ears and dripped quietly on the floor. I now have only a remnant of brain left to function with. In short its like this:
Figure 1. MRI scan of my brain before exam
Figure 2. MRI scan of my brain after exam. Doh!
This was probably the hardest exam I have ever had over the last 3 years of uni. The lecturer insists on not asking questions that relate to major concepts that he spent more than 5 minutes of a lecture talking about - instead he asks questions about things he spent 1 slide and 2 minutes on and expects you to be able to write a 30 min essay on it. And some how he managed to completely forget that the guest lecturer from the IWC wasnt able to come this year and asked a question about the IWC in the exam anyway.
Thankfully there was some internal choice in the exam so you could choose questions that you knew a smidgen about rather than having to do questions you knew absolutely nothing about. I actually did one of the 3omin questions based entirely on knowledge from 2 of my courses last semester as we only covered it for 3 minutes this semester. My friend Tori did one of the 3o minute questions purely from a course she did in first year because, again, we didn't cover that topic in class.
I should have passed the stupid thing, though. (should being the operative word in that sentence).
Of course it does not help that I feel really unwell today. I don't know why. I felt quite a bit unwell yesterday when I was trying to study but I pretended that it was only going to last for a day and so I tried to convince myself that it wasn't going to be that bad.
Now I feel like during my exam a chemical reaction occured in my brain turning it slowly into a viscous substance not unlike marshmellow. Then this strange viscous greyish, marshmellow ran out my ears and dripped quietly on the floor. I now have only a remnant of brain left to function with. In short its like this:
Figure 1. MRI scan of my brain before exam
Figure 2. MRI scan of my brain after exam. Doh!Tuesday, 28 October 2008
Monday, 27 October 2008
4 days left- and 2 exams down!
Had my second exam today - it went fairly well but as always it could have been better.
And yes, I am again annoyed at how much I learnt that was not on the exam.
I have a whole day to study for the next one which is fantastic because it means that I can actually go to bed early tonight instead of desperately reading over my notes again, and again, and again trying to remember that EMPCA stands for the Environmental Management and Pollution Control Act of 1994 and that EPBC stands for the Environmental Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act of 1999 and that the real name of the Madrid Protocol is the Protocol of Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty 1959 (as you can see it obviously worked because I can remember all these things even after my exam).
And yes, I am again annoyed at how much I learnt that was not on the exam.
I have a whole day to study for the next one which is fantastic because it means that I can actually go to bed early tonight instead of desperately reading over my notes again, and again, and again trying to remember that EMPCA stands for the Environmental Management and Pollution Control Act of 1994 and that EPBC stands for the Environmental Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act of 1999 and that the real name of the Madrid Protocol is the Protocol of Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty 1959 (as you can see it obviously worked because I can remember all these things even after my exam).
Sunday, 26 October 2008
5 days left- and 1 exam down!
Now I'm counting down and counting up at the same time : )
I had my first exam this morning- Freshwater Ecology.
I made the comment to a couple of friends yesterday that Freshwater Ecology is deceptively harder than it sounds like it would be and they informed me that it actually sounds harder than I thought it did. So now I much prouder of saying that I did a Freshwater Ecology exam today.
As always I'm annoyed about the volume of information I worked really hard to gather and memorize that wasn't on the exam, but that was to be expected when you boil a semester's worth of work (and a lot of course content) into one morning's exam. I'm glad I learnt the whole course rather than just the previous exam questions, though, as they asked some completely different (and for most people completely unexpected) questions.
Now I have to continue (I would say start, but I actually did a couple of days worth last week) studying for Environmental Impact Assessment which is tomorrow morning's exam. I really hate doing two exams this close together, but it could be worse, technically its possible to have two in the same day. Yuck! that would be awful- serious brain mush!
Saturday, 25 October 2008
Friday, 24 October 2008
7 days left
For those of you who are mathmatically challenged that is exactly one week.
One week is all that stands between me and graduation - yay!!
One week is all that stands between me and graduation - yay!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)