Officially a Super Senior
I took my last (and only) exam of the semester this afternoon, meaning that there is nothing (scholastically) standing between me and the beginning of my fifth (and final) year of university. Hard to believe.
This morning I woke up at my normal work time (I don't know why, I had the day off), around 7:45, and killed a bit of time before getting ready for the day and heading over to Wentworth to settle my rent at the bank and pick up a few things. When I walked in the teller who I opened my account with (and ended up in a ten minute conversation about Trueblood) recognized me. Fun how that works.
I returned home and attempted (being the key word) to study for my exam which was scheduled for 3:00. As I alluded to yesterday, and to those of you who know me from an academic setting, I don't like studying, and am admittedly not too great at focusing for an extended period of time (greater than about 90 seconds) on staring at a book or notes. I have managed my way through university* quite well because, unlike with studying, I can synthesize all day long (which is what I do in architecture and most of my history classes where I do a fair bit of writing). As I have explained to people in the past, I would much rather spend 8 hours drawing or building a model (or admittedly even writing, even though that process is a bit more tortured because it often coincides with pouring over books, which as I mentioned I don't like doing**) than just one hour studying. I suppose I chose the right field of study!
Anyways, I found distraction in things like (finally) booking my Melbourne trip. After heaps of wrangling with Jetstar, a twenty minute phone call sealed the deal. I have to say, for the torturous three weeks that I have spent dealing with Jetstar (it is a long story starting back in Cairns when they cancelled our flight), it all worked out quite nicely. Amanda and I will be heading off to Melbourne for a long weekend in late July, a last hoorah before I head back stateside.
With the flight booked, I proceeded to study. For about two minutes. Then I decided to distract myself in conversation with someone back in the US. That lasted most of the rest of the afternoon, and I headed out to the exam (which was conveniently in the building directly across the street). I ran into Janene and another friend from the class who had been studying in the morning together. They tend to joke that I don't have to do anything for the class since I am American and it is American History. They also figured that I hadn't studied, which wasn't too far from the truth. They had a nice time balling my out for it, but I think we were all equally tentative as we queued up to go into the exam room.
The exam process is very, very regimented here. A few weeks in advance you are assigned a room and a seat number (while it might be like this at large schools in the states, I can only base the comparison on what I have experienced at Tulane). The class (of about 350) was split up and spread out across campus in different rooms, combined with students from other classes taking different exams. When you enter there is an exam booklet on the desk (like a blue book in the states, but you aren't allowed to supply your own). Once everyone was seated in their proper seat, everyone filled out the front of their booklets and put their IDs on the desk next to part of the cover that you tear off your booklet. As the proctors (of which there were two) came around and handed out the exam papers they checked the slips of paper against our IDs and collected the papers to have an official count of who started the exam.
You have a ten minute reading period to go through the exam questions. Since our exam had a very limited selection of questions, the period was torturous as I had to sit there and not write down my ideas. I have to admit, studying would not have helped me anyways; give me a topic I am vaguely familiar with and I am off to the races. In fact, I kind of get into the writing and really enjoy it as I hammer through each topic I have mulled over in my mind (and make some up on the spot). Needless to say, I wrote and wrote and wrote and timed the period of my conclusion of the second question about ten seconds before we were told "pens down." In the two hours I fleshed out my ideas filling ten pages of the booklet; I was quite happy with the outcome.
After the exam Janene and I (who were in the same room) met up with a third person from our tute and headed across campus to Manning Bar for a celebratory schooner (well, Janene had bubbles). We had a nice debrief on our thoughts of the exam and relaxed a bit before splitting up to each head home.
I made some pasta with veg and some garlic bread for dinner with a Bundaberg ginger beer as a reward for finishing the academic year.
With my upcoming trip I have just enough leftovers from the week to finish out my meals before I leave on Friday evening (mom, you taught me well!).
I looked into the weather for Canberra, and things are going to be a bit chilly. The temperature gets down to 0, so I will be packing my heavy clothes so I can rug up on my short trip. Tomorrow and Friday are work as usual, and I have a 6:00 bus to Canberra on Friday evening.
Phrase of the day:
rug up - to wear lots of layers of clothing to keep out the cold
*Has anyone noticed that my language has changed a bit since I have been down here? I have to admit, I am not conscious of it until I go back and reread things. It is generally small things like word choice in certain situations (like there I would have used to use 'college'). I think the biggest thing that I catch myself using is 'how are you going?' instead of 'how are you doing?' which has confused quite a few American friends when I say hello online... I suppose when that is all I am asked (at work, etc.) I fall into the pattern. That being said, I will consciously import a few words back to the US that I have enjoyed from over here. But that list is for another blog post.
**Unless the reading is on a topic that I enjoy. Then I tend to not be able to put the book down.
This morning I woke up at my normal work time (I don't know why, I had the day off), around 7:45, and killed a bit of time before getting ready for the day and heading over to Wentworth to settle my rent at the bank and pick up a few things. When I walked in the teller who I opened my account with (and ended up in a ten minute conversation about Trueblood) recognized me. Fun how that works.
I returned home and attempted (being the key word) to study for my exam which was scheduled for 3:00. As I alluded to yesterday, and to those of you who know me from an academic setting, I don't like studying, and am admittedly not too great at focusing for an extended period of time (greater than about 90 seconds) on staring at a book or notes. I have managed my way through university* quite well because, unlike with studying, I can synthesize all day long (which is what I do in architecture and most of my history classes where I do a fair bit of writing). As I have explained to people in the past, I would much rather spend 8 hours drawing or building a model (or admittedly even writing, even though that process is a bit more tortured because it often coincides with pouring over books, which as I mentioned I don't like doing**) than just one hour studying. I suppose I chose the right field of study!
Anyways, I found distraction in things like (finally) booking my Melbourne trip. After heaps of wrangling with Jetstar, a twenty minute phone call sealed the deal. I have to say, for the torturous three weeks that I have spent dealing with Jetstar (it is a long story starting back in Cairns when they cancelled our flight), it all worked out quite nicely. Amanda and I will be heading off to Melbourne for a long weekend in late July, a last hoorah before I head back stateside.
With the flight booked, I proceeded to study. For about two minutes. Then I decided to distract myself in conversation with someone back in the US. That lasted most of the rest of the afternoon, and I headed out to the exam (which was conveniently in the building directly across the street). I ran into Janene and another friend from the class who had been studying in the morning together. They tend to joke that I don't have to do anything for the class since I am American and it is American History. They also figured that I hadn't studied, which wasn't too far from the truth. They had a nice time balling my out for it, but I think we were all equally tentative as we queued up to go into the exam room.
The exam process is very, very regimented here. A few weeks in advance you are assigned a room and a seat number (while it might be like this at large schools in the states, I can only base the comparison on what I have experienced at Tulane). The class (of about 350) was split up and spread out across campus in different rooms, combined with students from other classes taking different exams. When you enter there is an exam booklet on the desk (like a blue book in the states, but you aren't allowed to supply your own). Once everyone was seated in their proper seat, everyone filled out the front of their booklets and put their IDs on the desk next to part of the cover that you tear off your booklet. As the proctors (of which there were two) came around and handed out the exam papers they checked the slips of paper against our IDs and collected the papers to have an official count of who started the exam.
You have a ten minute reading period to go through the exam questions. Since our exam had a very limited selection of questions, the period was torturous as I had to sit there and not write down my ideas. I have to admit, studying would not have helped me anyways; give me a topic I am vaguely familiar with and I am off to the races. In fact, I kind of get into the writing and really enjoy it as I hammer through each topic I have mulled over in my mind (and make some up on the spot). Needless to say, I wrote and wrote and wrote and timed the period of my conclusion of the second question about ten seconds before we were told "pens down." In the two hours I fleshed out my ideas filling ten pages of the booklet; I was quite happy with the outcome.
After the exam Janene and I (who were in the same room) met up with a third person from our tute and headed across campus to Manning Bar for a celebratory schooner (well, Janene had bubbles). We had a nice debrief on our thoughts of the exam and relaxed a bit before splitting up to each head home.
I made some pasta with veg and some garlic bread for dinner with a Bundaberg ginger beer as a reward for finishing the academic year.
 |
| Celebratory dinner. |
I looked into the weather for Canberra, and things are going to be a bit chilly. The temperature gets down to 0, so I will be packing my heavy clothes so I can rug up on my short trip. Tomorrow and Friday are work as usual, and I have a 6:00 bus to Canberra on Friday evening.
Phrase of the day:
rug up - to wear lots of layers of clothing to keep out the cold
*Has anyone noticed that my language has changed a bit since I have been down here? I have to admit, I am not conscious of it until I go back and reread things. It is generally small things like word choice in certain situations (like there I would have used to use 'college'). I think the biggest thing that I catch myself using is 'how are you going?' instead of 'how are you doing?' which has confused quite a few American friends when I say hello online... I suppose when that is all I am asked (at work, etc.) I fall into the pattern. That being said, I will consciously import a few words back to the US that I have enjoyed from over here. But that list is for another blog post.
**Unless the reading is on a topic that I enjoy. Then I tend to not be able to put the book down.
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