The eye of the storm
Well so it's gone, a month or so of unqualified stress. I thought I'd just do a quick round-up of the past few days which has, incidentally, seen no less than 40 pages of words being written, 3 ink refills, and the emergence of several new records: 5 pages for several essays (and that's a tremendous achievement if you ask me, considering my small handwriting and propensity for condensed arguments), 3 pages being written under 15 minutes, and a whopping 45 minutes spent on the planning of one essay, just to name some. Here's the breakdown on subjects:
Maths: Half-dead, what with over 60 marks lost over the lack of time and carelessness. Paper 1 was one of my personal worst disasters ever, with more than 21 marks left totally undone; stubbornly tried to solve those little questions attatched to the main ones, leaving out the last 2 questions out as a result. Losing 60 marks leaves me right on the 70% mark, and the main fight here would be in how many method marks I scrape up versus how many marks I lose due to unseen carelessness and/or questions that I thought right turned wrong. Wont commit myself to any hope here, because past experience has shown that answers can go horribly wrong in places you least expect them to.
Economics: Worse than maths, somewhat surprisingly. Screwed up the only comparative advantage (comparative, mind you, not aboslute)Ive ever had in my academic life. I made a complete mess of things, right from the assembly line process to the research and development sector to the marketing department. The gamble I took was a function of incompetency under the wraps of negligence, my enterprising spirit is rubbish and this venture has ultimately been a failure for me.
History: Very straight 15, 16/25 essays. Slightly more if I get lucky, a lot worse if I get a little unlucky. No further comment.
Literature: Several questions poorly done, wrote totally out of topic. For these in particular I was more like throwing out my own content than addressing the questions, and believe me when I say there is no saving grace. I've been penalised for digressing before, and there is no reason why I would not be penalised again. I think next time I should just stick to the context questions (ie they give you an text extract and you answer based on it) instead of the essay ones.
Bad things aside, the core papers ended with a very big bang for me. I did the most enjoyable piece of essay I did ever. It was lit criticism: Write a critical commentary on the extract, exploring especially the techniques used in blurring the blurring of theatrical performance and reality. It was tom stoppard's Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot Macbeth, and in case you wouldnt know tom stoppard is one of my all-time favourites; you cant imagine how excited I got when I finally got the opportunity to do a criticism piece on him. And the question was an absolute delight: theatrical performance and reality, art and reality, fiction and truth-- the kind of abstractions I absolutely adore if you know me well enough. (As a side note econs s was a delight too, with questions such as "Is there really an adequate indicator of development?")
Of course, we may want to draw a clear line between passion and excellence, though we often take the two as a married couple. I enjoyed my writing yes, but I definitely overextended myself, resulting in what could be seen as the equivalent of the crowding out effect. Points got beyond my control, in large part because the concepts were complex, and I dont have the kind of syntatical/ linguistic infrastructure to support them; expression would definitely suffer as a result, and the points would ultimately go unmarked. As a matter of fact the whole essay seem to be more a regression into the concepts of performative language, functional roles, meta-drama and heck even some deconstruction, than it is a well-developed, balanced piece of criticism. But really, I enjoyed my time writing it, and I guess sometimes thats all that matters. Thats what education should be about really, not so much of restrictions as there should be room for the occasional wild growth of your passions; we should enjoy what we're studying and not think of it as the opportunity cost to leisure.
Im tired. Study fatigue has reached its peak in me. I dont wish to think anymore, Im mentally drained and the very thought of writing another essay again--any essay, on stoppard or not-- makes me feel nauseous. Im going to declare a one week break for myself, a 100% no-study period. The following week would probably see some light studying in the form of reading outside material, but that's the limit, I dont want to burn myself out by starting the final stretch too early, too fast.
It's very interesting to see the plans made by people all around after the exams-- they have made no plans, the most being one or two gatherings with friends over the weekend. People are, perhaps quite surprisingly, opting to stay at home instead. I guess we're all truly tired. The people I talked to mostly claimed they wanted some time with themselves, to go for jogs, read books, "stare at the windows". Sounds good to me, sounds really good.
Maths: Half-dead, what with over 60 marks lost over the lack of time and carelessness. Paper 1 was one of my personal worst disasters ever, with more than 21 marks left totally undone; stubbornly tried to solve those little questions attatched to the main ones, leaving out the last 2 questions out as a result. Losing 60 marks leaves me right on the 70% mark, and the main fight here would be in how many method marks I scrape up versus how many marks I lose due to unseen carelessness and/or questions that I thought right turned wrong. Wont commit myself to any hope here, because past experience has shown that answers can go horribly wrong in places you least expect them to.
Economics: Worse than maths, somewhat surprisingly. Screwed up the only comparative advantage (comparative, mind you, not aboslute)Ive ever had in my academic life. I made a complete mess of things, right from the assembly line process to the research and development sector to the marketing department. The gamble I took was a function of incompetency under the wraps of negligence, my enterprising spirit is rubbish and this venture has ultimately been a failure for me.
History: Very straight 15, 16/25 essays. Slightly more if I get lucky, a lot worse if I get a little unlucky. No further comment.
Literature: Several questions poorly done, wrote totally out of topic. For these in particular I was more like throwing out my own content than addressing the questions, and believe me when I say there is no saving grace. I've been penalised for digressing before, and there is no reason why I would not be penalised again. I think next time I should just stick to the context questions (ie they give you an text extract and you answer based on it) instead of the essay ones.
Bad things aside, the core papers ended with a very big bang for me. I did the most enjoyable piece of essay I did ever. It was lit criticism: Write a critical commentary on the extract, exploring especially the techniques used in blurring the blurring of theatrical performance and reality. It was tom stoppard's Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot Macbeth, and in case you wouldnt know tom stoppard is one of my all-time favourites; you cant imagine how excited I got when I finally got the opportunity to do a criticism piece on him. And the question was an absolute delight: theatrical performance and reality, art and reality, fiction and truth-- the kind of abstractions I absolutely adore if you know me well enough. (As a side note econs s was a delight too, with questions such as "Is there really an adequate indicator of development?")
Of course, we may want to draw a clear line between passion and excellence, though we often take the two as a married couple. I enjoyed my writing yes, but I definitely overextended myself, resulting in what could be seen as the equivalent of the crowding out effect. Points got beyond my control, in large part because the concepts were complex, and I dont have the kind of syntatical/ linguistic infrastructure to support them; expression would definitely suffer as a result, and the points would ultimately go unmarked. As a matter of fact the whole essay seem to be more a regression into the concepts of performative language, functional roles, meta-drama and heck even some deconstruction, than it is a well-developed, balanced piece of criticism. But really, I enjoyed my time writing it, and I guess sometimes thats all that matters. Thats what education should be about really, not so much of restrictions as there should be room for the occasional wild growth of your passions; we should enjoy what we're studying and not think of it as the opportunity cost to leisure.
Im tired. Study fatigue has reached its peak in me. I dont wish to think anymore, Im mentally drained and the very thought of writing another essay again--any essay, on stoppard or not-- makes me feel nauseous. Im going to declare a one week break for myself, a 100% no-study period. The following week would probably see some light studying in the form of reading outside material, but that's the limit, I dont want to burn myself out by starting the final stretch too early, too fast.
It's very interesting to see the plans made by people all around after the exams-- they have made no plans, the most being one or two gatherings with friends over the weekend. People are, perhaps quite surprisingly, opting to stay at home instead. I guess we're all truly tired. The people I talked to mostly claimed they wanted some time with themselves, to go for jogs, read books, "stare at the windows". Sounds good to me, sounds really good.
1 Comments:
I'm all for staring at windows. =)
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