The Obligatory Post-Exam Catch Up

Ok, as can be inferred from the title, the exams are over. Practically every student's blog I read is pasted with a large 'hiatus' symbol during the exam periods (though this hiatus symbol sometimes gives in to short posts titled 'i gave up' or 'i cheated' or 'i got bored'), and this post is thereby followed up with 'ITS OVER!' once it really is done.

So yes, this is the obligatory post-exam evaluation/planner etc. basically anything you use to name THAT post after the exams where you write about how the papers went, how you think you would do, and what you plan to do now, more often that not promising to no one but yourself or your blog that you would study harder next semester.

I'll try as much as possible to turn this post into something interesting. But remember, its about the exams after all. As much as a module may be exciting and challenging, how much could an exam get? Challenging for sure, but exciting? Nah.

So anyway, here's the evaluation:

Comms - Here's to the first time in my life that I mistook my seat number. While I initially felt horribly guilty for making the rightful owner of seat number 233 run up and down twice just to ensure it was me, and not her, that got it wrong, this guilty was quickly dispelled by the horribly tricky MCQ and cloze passages. Ah well, a 'tricky' paper is about the closest resemblance you could get in an exam to a real life situation anyway, so maybe we students have shot ourselves in the foot for complaining that exams are 'nothing like what you get in real life anyway'. Here we get it. The tricky paper. Mimicking real life scenarios where everything is uncertain.

Survey Part 2 - I'm still in disbelief that this paper turned out to be the easiest exam I've sat for since I entered university. But the fact that this easily translates into stricter marking guidelines and steeper bell curve is not making me anymore hopeful.

Cyber Security - Here's a toast to learning the hard way that, as much as globalization calls for us Singaporeans to embrace 2 gigantic growing nations, for now I should endeavour to avoid modules where the general locus around me in the exam hall features nary another Singaporean (oh wait! The rest of my kind have learned!) So you can just imagine my pain as I chewed through the MCQs and was going to work on the 6 structured questions when people from those nations and a couple from other lands that sported the same crew cut + spectacles + bermudas + sandals + tshirt ensemble began to leave the exam hall. Surely it didn't help that I was struck by this unexplainable and horrible headache that left me stoning at some junctures when I should have been writing?

Victorian - This course has served not only as a killer, but also as a warning for me. And was it a mistake to veer over unseen poetry for a recollection of narrative twists in some mystery sensational detective and potentially racist novel instead? Science Fiction for next sem? At least I know the formula for dealing with her classes now, but would I execute it correctly?

Singapore - So Singaporean, everything was 'up to you'. Now I just hope my angle was right. Sighs, if only the next step was headed by another one ( inside joke, can't name names here).

And my overal say on the exams would actually be that this semester was tough, and its only going to get worse, so I'd better step up the game. Try as I might to avoid saying this, cliches are often the truth (and that is a cliche too). I've also made a mental note to try to go for courses which are not so final exam heavy, and oh the woes of having 2 exam papers in a day. I cannot complain too much on this since some of my friends are having to deal with 3 today, but I inevitably found myself repeating the same phrases for the essays in my 2 papers today.

OK enough of this evaluation, let's move on to the 2nd part where we talk about what we are going to do this holidays.

But nonetheless, while quite a significant chunk of my 3 month break would be taken up by an internship, I do have to get other things accomplished during this holiday, some of which I actually do not have the mood to do, but have to kick myself to do it anyway.

And the list goes on:

1. Going back to exercise! Yes, I can't wait to scale the structures @ West Coast Park.
2. Driving. Enough Said.
3. 日本語not forgetting my test on Thursday!
4. I can finally read a book which is not on some list of mandatory (techincally only) readings.
5. I'm really looking forward to my birthday celebration this year. I finally have a barbecue pit and, freed from exams, I will have the liberty to prepare my own feast for the guests. Right now I have a vague menu in mind, but its definitely going to involve a pasta salad, succulent meat cuts, roasted vegetable skewers and barbecued bananas and sweet potatoes for dessert.
6. The inevitable - Housework.
7. The want - Visiting grandma, picking up the recipes!

And yes it goes on and on, but right now I've since been interrupted by the urge for a run. I have also made it a point to spend less time on my laptop, though not to the point where I would actually lock it up as planned, since I tend to get horribly distracted by the likes of youtube and msn when I do attempt to do something productive online. So I'd probably be blogging about my hoilday exploits from a stool in front of the desktop, which is perched on top of cardboard boxes.

And the obligatory post comes to an end!