Mid-year exams already!

And here we are in early June already. It is almost unbelievable how quickly time has gone. In ten days time, I'll be writing a three-hour exam in English and handing in a 2,500 word essay in Religious Studies, and that will be the end of Semester One. Luckily for me, I'm on vacation from my paying job so have ample time to study and prepare!

It's been a wonderful, wonderful three months, on the whole. Practically speaking, the work remains more than manageable and I've been able to keep my grades up at an average of A for English and A+ for Religious Studies. The final exam and the final paper count for 50% of the marks in both courses, so I'm going to have to do really well in both to maintain those averages.

Things I have learned:

I really dislike the whole academic essay thing (as in the Reli course essays). The subject matter is fascinating, stirring up all sorts of thoughts and ideas (the kinds of things I had naively hoped would be discussed and debated in tutorials!). But the academic approach is to take this fascinating subject, examine it through the lens of some academic theory and then say how the THEORY works to either explain or fail to explain the fascinating subject. For the final essay, we have to describe a spiritual practice, explain it using a theory of religion and then say how the theory works or where it falls short. They make a point of saying 'we are NOT INTERESTED in your conclusions - we just want to see evidence of your creative and critical thinking'. Talk about sucking all the life out of the subject ...  So, despite having a deep, deep interest in all things religious and despite there being some really fascinating courses available at levels two and three, I'm not going to be doing any more Reli papers.

On the other hand, I really enjoy doing the critical analysis papers in English. As I got to grips with this over the term, my grades improved and my enjoyment increased. I like the challenge of taking a passage and going into it both 'wider' (seeing how it relates to the work as a whole) and 'deeper' (what do the particular words mean and what else could we infer from these word choices?) I love learning about where particular words originated, how they evolved and how they can be used to create layers of meaning. I'm at the moment preparing for the exam by reviewing the set texts and annotating wherever possible - it is an open book exam and all three questions will be to write a critical analysis of a poem/extract. The two compulsory questions will be from Chaucer's The Miller's Tale and Keats' poems. The last one will be a choice from four other extracts, so there's a bit of leeway there.

I've also rediscovered something else about me: I'm a procrastinator of the first order. I mostly kept up with the pre-class readings in Religious Studies but fell behind in English (probably due to unfamiliarity with Old English and not knowing the stories therefore getting confused by reading on my own). I also fell behind in revising post-lecture - no excuse except laziness and lack of focus! Which means all my prep now is what I should have been doing in that pre-and post-reading! Ah, well. Better late than never. (Yeah, I said it!)

The second trimester starts on 11th July. Between now and then (once exams are done) I will be flying back to South Africa for three weeks to visit my parents and friends - having worked for the last 18 months, I've accumulated a lot of leave time and am taking six weeks in total. When I get back, I'll have a week to get back into the uni schedule before I start back at the hospital. I'm registered for two courses next trimester, with a possible third ... seeing as it's been so manageable this term, I figured I might try three while they're still 100 level courses - once we get to the 200 and 300 levels, I don't think it'll be as easy. So, I'll be doing Ling 101 (Introduction to Language) and Film 101 (Introduction to Film). Both fall within the choices for English Studies major, so will work as far as total credits are concerned. The third paper I've applied for is actually a 200 level limited entry creative writing workshop - they only take 12 students and apparently up to 40 usually apply. Entry is strictly on merit - I spent all of last weekend polishing the two samples and cover letter - so we'll see. They don't encourage first years to apply, but neither do they preclude them specifically. Fingers crossed for that, as I would absolutely LOVE it!

So, for now, back to the books and specifially, Keat's Lamia. If you're interested, read it HERE.