An ending fitting for the start...
On Monday night, I was preparing for my penultimate exam, MT5829 Group Rings, which was on Tuesday morning. It got a little ridiculous.
This is the first year this course has been taught. It's also the first lecture course our the lecturer, from the Ukraine, had given in English. As a result, it was a little unpolished... In particular, we weren't actually given any exercises to do over the entirety of the course, so everyone (all four of us doing the course) was feeling a little rough about it. On the other hand, I got compromised for the course because of all the dissertation work I did. Additionally, I'm confident enough that my dissertation's first class quality, and that means I need to average 8's in exams for a first. And don't need the first for funded place, anyway. Plus have been reminded that I'm essentially unable to fail, and have been reassured that the roughness of the course may well be taken into account in grading.
So, my revision on Tuesday night was working my way through the notes, reading proofs, which had been horribly written during lectures, and at points, copied down with worse handwriting. And I had been kinda assured I couldn't fail. So I was pulling out every trick in the book to avoid revision. I was, as I'd explained to Nicholas earlier, doing my usual all-nighter to avoid oversleeping and missing the exam. I mean, the only way I'm likely to not get a first is by missing an exam.
All this is leading up to explain why, at 2am, seven and a half hours before my exam which I was dreading, I asked Soph over MSN how she thought our relationship's going.
"You're just trying to avoid revision, aren't you?"
"Yes, yes I am. So how do you feel about me?"
"I think we should just be friends. We've been arguing more since we got back together, and I don't like arguing with you. I think we're better off good friends, because I really don't want to stop being close to you. I was going to wait till after your exams to say this, but you brought it up..."
At this point, I realised I'd managed to get myself dumped in order to avoid revising.
Anyway, I finished copying up notes about 5:30. Went through the one sample past paper we'd been given, saw it was all bookwork, and decided to have a shower. Because there was nothing else I could do, workwise, at 0630 I decided to lie down and rest my eyes. And get under the covers with my hot water bottle.
Four hours later, an hour after my exam had started, I woke up. Surprisingly, realising I was in the process of missing an exam, I was calm and collected, as I always am when worse-case scenarios happen.
The exam was in the maths department, and since they love me and only four people were supposed to be sitting it, I thought I might be able to get in late. It was the final linen change at Melville, so I decided to take my sheets to reception, to see if I could get clean ones held there till I got back. I debated having that shower, and realised that turning up two hours late for an exam with wet hair would give the wrong impression.
There was no one at reception, but a first year I ran into pointed out I should probably not hang around reception waiting, given the urgency of my situation. I asked her if she could look after my sheets, and went to the maths departement.
They love me there. They insisted I have something to eat and let myself wake up properly before sitting my exam. So, after a refreshing breakfast of a bag of crisps and a bottle of lucozade, while refreshing my memory of notes, I sat the exam (oddly sans invigilator) in a room on my own. It was fun. I could put my feet up and not worry about sitting weirdly. I ended up skipping about 30% of the marks, but should hopefully have a mark solidly in the 13-17 range.
I went to meet Arthur, Fiona and Ally (who'd just finished, full stop) in the pub, as arranged, and had my first session of basking in my sheer jamminess and the ridiculousness of the whole situation. I ended up spending the afternoon watching sitcoms with Soph, to prove things weren't awkward, and had a brilliant phone call with a really worried Nicholas, who'd been informed by the lecturer that I had been "annihilated by someone else". We think he meant invigilated.
I eventually got back to Melville at 9pm, at which point I realised I had no bedclothes.
So, in the end, I had to explain to Steve that I had no bedsheets because I'd overslept and missed my exam. And that the causality was complex. I also had to point the flaw in his suggestion of finding someone attractive to share a bed with, though I did call up Soph, debating a sofa.
In the end, sleeping bags and blankets sufficed. Nonetheless, I can't help but feel that getting oneself dumped to avoid revision, followed by oversleeping to miss one's exam and consequently losing one's bedsheets is a rather legendary acheivement. I've got a good story, and I've lived. It's nice to see how many crazy uni stories one can amass in the final days.
Things are good.
[Written 4.75 hours before final exam.]
This is the first year this course has been taught. It's also the first lecture course our the lecturer, from the Ukraine, had given in English. As a result, it was a little unpolished... In particular, we weren't actually given any exercises to do over the entirety of the course, so everyone (all four of us doing the course) was feeling a little rough about it. On the other hand, I got compromised for the course because of all the dissertation work I did. Additionally, I'm confident enough that my dissertation's first class quality, and that means I need to average 8's in exams for a first. And don't need the first for funded place, anyway. Plus have been reminded that I'm essentially unable to fail, and have been reassured that the roughness of the course may well be taken into account in grading.
So, my revision on Tuesday night was working my way through the notes, reading proofs, which had been horribly written during lectures, and at points, copied down with worse handwriting. And I had been kinda assured I couldn't fail. So I was pulling out every trick in the book to avoid revision. I was, as I'd explained to Nicholas earlier, doing my usual all-nighter to avoid oversleeping and missing the exam. I mean, the only way I'm likely to not get a first is by missing an exam.
All this is leading up to explain why, at 2am, seven and a half hours before my exam which I was dreading, I asked Soph over MSN how she thought our relationship's going.
"You're just trying to avoid revision, aren't you?"
"Yes, yes I am. So how do you feel about me?"
"I think we should just be friends. We've been arguing more since we got back together, and I don't like arguing with you. I think we're better off good friends, because I really don't want to stop being close to you. I was going to wait till after your exams to say this, but you brought it up..."
At this point, I realised I'd managed to get myself dumped in order to avoid revising.
Anyway, I finished copying up notes about 5:30. Went through the one sample past paper we'd been given, saw it was all bookwork, and decided to have a shower. Because there was nothing else I could do, workwise, at 0630 I decided to lie down and rest my eyes. And get under the covers with my hot water bottle.
Four hours later, an hour after my exam had started, I woke up. Surprisingly, realising I was in the process of missing an exam, I was calm and collected, as I always am when worse-case scenarios happen.
The exam was in the maths department, and since they love me and only four people were supposed to be sitting it, I thought I might be able to get in late. It was the final linen change at Melville, so I decided to take my sheets to reception, to see if I could get clean ones held there till I got back. I debated having that shower, and realised that turning up two hours late for an exam with wet hair would give the wrong impression.
There was no one at reception, but a first year I ran into pointed out I should probably not hang around reception waiting, given the urgency of my situation. I asked her if she could look after my sheets, and went to the maths departement.
They love me there. They insisted I have something to eat and let myself wake up properly before sitting my exam. So, after a refreshing breakfast of a bag of crisps and a bottle of lucozade, while refreshing my memory of notes, I sat the exam (oddly sans invigilator) in a room on my own. It was fun. I could put my feet up and not worry about sitting weirdly. I ended up skipping about 30% of the marks, but should hopefully have a mark solidly in the 13-17 range.
I went to meet Arthur, Fiona and Ally (who'd just finished, full stop) in the pub, as arranged, and had my first session of basking in my sheer jamminess and the ridiculousness of the whole situation. I ended up spending the afternoon watching sitcoms with Soph, to prove things weren't awkward, and had a brilliant phone call with a really worried Nicholas, who'd been informed by the lecturer that I had been "annihilated by someone else". We think he meant invigilated.
I eventually got back to Melville at 9pm, at which point I realised I had no bedclothes.
So, in the end, I had to explain to Steve that I had no bedsheets because I'd overslept and missed my exam. And that the causality was complex. I also had to point the flaw in his suggestion of finding someone attractive to share a bed with, though I did call up Soph, debating a sofa.
In the end, sleeping bags and blankets sufficed. Nonetheless, I can't help but feel that getting oneself dumped to avoid revision, followed by oversleeping to miss one's exam and consequently losing one's bedsheets is a rather legendary acheivement. I've got a good story, and I've lived. It's nice to see how many crazy uni stories one can amass in the final days.
Things are good.
[Written 4.75 hours before final exam.]