Done. Happy? 50 multiple choice, one essay. I've never had to wait in line to take a test before....
There's something to be said for finishing a half hour early and having to sit around. Either A) I did ok (and OK is really anything over passing) or I barely bombed, which would be heartbreaking, and I'd have to take science at Luther instead of my otherwise-scheduled 18 credits per semester that i'll be jamming in during Sr year.
It felt good, not great, but not terrible either. The best feeling came in knowing that i'll never have to think about subsiding monoclines or the Tertiary Period ever again.
My body knew it had been punished, so despite my best efforts to eat a healthy lunch and watch a beautiful German Art Film (film, not movie), I ate a chunk of icecream dessert and passed out for 4 hours in what can only be described as a position usually reserved for corpses in movies about genocide. I woke up facing over my shoulder with my arm in a position it has never and will never be in ever again.
Tonight- possible play about serial killer, maybe a quiet night on the town. I deserve it, after all. Two finals in a row after two weeks of complete complacency. Islam on Tuesday. The scholarly thing to do would be study, so most likely i'll read Lolita or watch the first season of Grey's ... maybe that would've helped me with the science... no?
Amurrican Lit 1: until 1900 is history, both in the literal obvious sense of anything taking place before 1900 being history and in the sense that, I've just rocked the final, and I'm now 12 hours away from failing a different one.
The exam, as expected, was the easiest that i'll encounter. To take a first year class at a university that, despite it's record as a top 75 in the world and top 10 in the world, is still essentially a state school is easy in the first place. Add on top of that the fact that I'm a 3 year college student taking said class in my major, and most specifically, reading books that I had read as an 8th grader at Urbandale Middle School. Thanks, Mr Perrot. If I read To Kill a Mockingbird or Red Badge of Courage, I'll be sure to give you a call.
Now, the objective is simple: survive until tomorrow at 11am. I've given up on learning anything new, and now the focus is on what many would call the downside of standardized tests: I'm doing everything in my power to channel Prof McGovern's essence, and Studying for The Test and the Test alone. Not for knowledge later in life, not for a better understanding of the British Landscape. Too late for that. Now it's about survival. 50 multiple choice and 1 essay (possible questions? Glad you asked:)
The history of past climates is recorded in the rocks of Britain. Discuss using examples from the British Isles.
Rock type is more important than any other factors in determining the appearance of the physical landscape. Discuss this contention using examples of British landscapes to illustrate your argument
Provide a detailed account of the impacts of opening of the Atlantic ocean on the Physical landscape of Britain.
In our final today, some helpful German exchange students who are headed home this weekend after a grueling finals schedule informed us that just by showing up, we've gained 20%. So, the bar is lowered even further. They could be lying. Neither of them read the books, and the girl even questioned showing up for the final in the first place. Why is it that they say US students are slipping on a global scale again? Someone should check on Deutschland...
12 hours, 24 minutes, 10 seconds until my destiny becomes reality.
Then, it's celebration time until Tuesday, when Islam comes a'knockin'.
Enjoy your friday night, I've got a date with the Permian Period and the Hercynian Orogeny.
First British finals in a few hours, and apparently the Apocalypse has arrived.
Last night's sleep was interrupted by a constant flow of loud slams and intermittent tearing sounds, as high winds ripped across the East Midlands, giving our sunlight and bike-saving tarp the time of their inanimate lives...
Today was spent marveling at the 70 mile per hour winds, guzzling freshly french-pressed coffee out of a stolen Venti-sized Starbucks mug, re-writing Geology notes onto freshly stapled loose leaf paper, and baking Jello cakes from scratch. Needless to say, I'm in no way prepared, but (and maybe watching the first three episodes of Heroes is playing with my mind), I feel like i can control the weather.... my last post lamented the strange inactivity of weather in the UK, and today we're experiencing Katrina II without the much needed Kanye West outbursts....
Call it serendipity, call it the rantings of a delusional college student looking for anything to make his life more interesting, I think I'm on to something here...
____ The next 48+ hours of my life are going to be hell. One human brain can only take so much Bartleby, Benito, Slave Narrative Critique, Monasteries as symbolism, Converging faults, ThermohalineCirculative theories, Synclines, and the like.
On the plus side, I just received my book for TV Cultures, and next semester promises to kick. ____________
The Cenozoic Era (period? era? whatever...) awaits....
According to the calander, it's January. Tell that to the British. Today, again a short-sleeved run, windows open, sunny skies (in between schitzo-bursts of rain and rolling clouds). Hilary says our bulbed flowers are sprouting.
To compare:
URBANDALE, IOWA 22°F Feels Like 8°F
NOTTINGHAM, UK
43°F Feels Like 35°F
DECORAH, IOWA
21°F Feels Like 15°F
Accounting for the fact that it's now 10pm in the UK and thus, no sun, the temp. difference is rediculous. Mark climate/weather as another possible accomplice in the "Groundhog-Day feeling" that has exhibited itself so far this year.
Aaron just said it best- maybe it's from being in the UK for a while, reading the papers, watching the BBC, and taking a step back from US politics and culture, but from this Ex-Pat's (and i use the term loosely, i'm not sure 4 months qualifies me), something is terribly wrong with the States right now....
Maybe i wasn't paying attention in Govt, maybe Ms Templeman didn't do her job, but as far as I can tell, there are some critical mis-statements in the following frightening encounter:
As one Youtube.com commenter noted, if Bush considers himself to be an 'Educator', maybe that's what's wrong with the GOP.....
Again, maybe i've been lulled into a robot-like trance by the last two weeks of absolute boredom and 2 hours of studying American Lit, but anyone with a logical sense of reason can see that something is wrong here....
___________ Two days until Am Lit final, followed by Geo and eventually Islam. The flat remains pretty sedated, kept alive on random binges of baking and a steady flow of classic American DVDs, occasionally sprinkled with studying, trips to Uni, and short runs of less than 6 miles.
A thought struck me today on my neverending journey to find an ATM and contact solution (a journey that took me to Sainsbury's Local, the petrol station, the tram stop, ASDA, and back...)..
I have been missing something. Missing is a strong word with probobly the wrong conotation in this sense, but missing is as close as i can come to describe it. Over the past four months I have become content to be enveloped in a greater whole- an ameoba of 9 Americans floating in the petri dish that is Nottingham/the UK/ The Continent of Europe.
Aside from random trips here or there, running errands (and even those trips alone are few and far between), I have had little to no alone/individual time here. Even at home in the states, time at a job or time running or time just out running mindless errands was time alone, my time. Here, i have for whatever reason avoided such individuality. Crosscountry, Classes, a possible job- any chance I have had to stand out as an individual has been compromised by some personal choice to cling to a fellow American.
Missing makes it sound like i am yearning for it, when in actuality i've made no attempt whatsoever to break from the group. Even in posts on this blog I find it hard to avoid saying WE instead of I... (look back to past posts if you haven't already noticed the sickening use of WE on a personal blog.... i'm sure psychologists could have a field day)
Bottom line, I need to branch out, make an effort to be an individual here as opposed to a part of the greater whole. Flat cohesiveness is great, but maybe there's more to this than just surviving 9 months in a foreign country. As much as I love this program, sometimes i wonder if i didnt take the easy way out in A) participating in a program that is so close to the US, or B) choosing a program that is so Luther and other-Americanny oriented.
As always, no matter how subtle or calm my thoughts actually are, they become extremified and polarized when put on paper (or rocketed into cyberspace).... I love it here, I love my flatmates, I love everything about the lazy weeks we've been having (maybe not everything), but I have come to the realization that more needs to be done- I need to make an effort to experience this on a more personal level as opposed moving around in packs. (packs if we are wolves, although a murder of crows or a pod of whales sounds more interesting....)
New Year's Resolution #13: Get out more, Become involved on an individual basis, experience on a personal level.
Easier said/typed/thought than done. _______________________________ ok. self improvement over. in a final sidenote, can you believe how expensive contact solution is over here? the big bottle my eye doctor in the states give me for free costs over 25 dollars here! thank god for WalMart and its UK equivalent, ASDA, for having cheap and crappy solution (not no-rub, but i'll make do) for only 4 pounds.
This week (the last post until today) has been a vanilla-yogurt, weetabix, bland mix of nothing and less-than-nothing.... I managed to read 5 or 6 books, watch a bunch of movies, play Risk for the first time since pre-Disney world flight last year, and visit a few new pubs....
Basically, i've been avoiding the unavoidable... At the end of next week, I'll be done with first semester and excited for my TV Cultures class, but at this point I'm scared out of my mind.
Geology is possibly the most difficult and rediculous class i've ever taken. Imagine a middle schooler sitting in on a college science class. I have no clue what the prof says or what i'm supposed to study. Our final (worth 75%) consists of an essay and 50ish multiple choice questions. After some very dificult equations (yup, still an English major at heart) I realize that each multiple choice question is worth roughly 1-2% of my final grade. That's DISGUSTING. It's helpful taking these crazy classes, as i can use this info for my future teaching. Never will i trick my students, make multiple choice tests worth so much, or teach Geology...
American Novel is slightly less scary.... the prof said (and this is verbatum) "The more you write, the better off you'll be..." That is to say, the more info you can jam into 2 hrs of essay writing, the better. I'm not sure if i agree with this, but considering the books we've read are covered in most 8th grade American classrooms, i think i'll be ok.... Huck Finn, some Melville, etc... the only thing that scares me is that so far we've had no other projects to grade... how UN-Luther...
In other news, there is no other news. Friends from home continue to be amazing, supportive, family continues to be awesome- be it through phone calls, emails, or packages containing awesome Asics Tiger shoes, and the the flatmates seem to have bonded/congealed/molded/adapted/grown together in ways that i really could not have imagined before leaving for break...
Phil Juggins warned us of the impending doom that was THE RETURN FROM CHRISTMAS BREAK - supposedly the time when tempers flare and patience boils over, but from what i can tell, we've only gotten closer....
With all of the stresses involved with finals, i hope it stays this way- time will tell.
THE TO DO LIST: -study -buy ticket home -plan gram and gramps' trip on Feb 16th -get a job -keep running
oh, and before anyone starts to worry, we did get a new washing machine. crisis averted. now if only the shower worked....
This is what HAPPENED when 9 students from the middle of nowhere WERE picked to live in a flat in the middle of Nottingham, England.
This is what HAPPENED when people stopped being polite, and start being REAL.
This WAS Luther- Nottingham Campus, 2006-2007
...And now I'm back.
