The marks are in
Picked up last term's essays. Suffice it to say the weather echoed my mild to moderate terror of this particular errand. It's been raining all day.
They were...lower than I wanted.
I passed both of them, thank God. If I hadn't, I'd probably be suffering a nervous breakdown right now. And, thanks to my very high mark from first term, my average has barely scraped past the minimum mark for the Ph.D. programme.
It's ironic that the essay I was more confident about was the one that came out with the lower mark. I was sure I'd written a nice, coherent piece, but apparently it contained rather large logistical gaps that I just hadn't seen. I managed to scrape the mark they gave me, on account of the vast amounts of research. Thank goodness it counted for something; I certainly spent enough time on it.
Of course, the silver lining on the cloud is that the essay that picked up the High Pass mark is the jumping-off point for my dissertation. And most of the problems pointed out by the examiner--i.e. lack of secondary sources, no real discussion of the parallels between Dumas' theatre and fiction, etc--are all things that will be dealt with in detail in the dissertation.
So I suppose it all evens out cosmically.
I think I'm going to drop my clothing into the washing machine and have a drink. Preferably something alcoholic. I don't care that it's the middle of the afternoon. Sometimes you just need alcohol.
They were...lower than I wanted.
I passed both of them, thank God. If I hadn't, I'd probably be suffering a nervous breakdown right now. And, thanks to my very high mark from first term, my average has barely scraped past the minimum mark for the Ph.D. programme.
It's ironic that the essay I was more confident about was the one that came out with the lower mark. I was sure I'd written a nice, coherent piece, but apparently it contained rather large logistical gaps that I just hadn't seen. I managed to scrape the mark they gave me, on account of the vast amounts of research. Thank goodness it counted for something; I certainly spent enough time on it.
Of course, the silver lining on the cloud is that the essay that picked up the High Pass mark is the jumping-off point for my dissertation. And most of the problems pointed out by the examiner--i.e. lack of secondary sources, no real discussion of the parallels between Dumas' theatre and fiction, etc--are all things that will be dealt with in detail in the dissertation.
So I suppose it all evens out cosmically.
I think I'm going to drop my clothing into the washing machine and have a drink. Preferably something alcoholic. I don't care that it's the middle of the afternoon. Sometimes you just need alcohol.