Monday 1 December 2008

Still Confusing!

I have had a pretty good day so far, but I'm still feeling totally confused about the upcoming exam - which is starting to get on my nerves!

I went to Uni early this morning, a few things not-so-great, but then I met Lena, which was wonderful!! We haven't seen each other in ages, so it was great catching up!!
Lectures at 10, our teacher said he'd email us during the weekend, what texts to prepare - we hadn't heard from him, and it turned out we'd use this last lecture for questions and repetition, which felt really good! First off, we found out the exam will not cover the entire Gospel of Mark, "only" the first 10 chapters, which are the chapters we have dealt with during lectures. I think it's good, the exam won't cover things we haven't discussed, of course, but I still can't help but feel a little disappointed, as it was said from the beginning we would in fact cover an entire Gospel (that's also the reason it's the Gospel of Mark, that's the shortest one, so despite the fact that the Greek language isn't the best, they chose it because we were supposed to be able to get through all of it) ... But my thoughts on that are quite extensive and this blog is not the right place for them.

My personal confusion got started almost right away though! From what I can understand the exam to be like, I might have difficulties getting a good result on it! I seriously doubt I would fail it, because I have studied so much, but as I have probably said before, just barely getting a passing grade is not really my goal ... The idea of the exam, as far as I can tell, is that we get a portion of text from the Gospel of Mark, say 5-6 verses, and we are to translate them, using a dictionary as help. After that, there are some grammatical questions to answer as well. The questions won't be too bad, I think, I am interested in languages, their structure and how they function, so I should do okay on that. But I'm worried about the text! Even though we're only having 10 (out of 16) chapters, it's still a great deal of text to cover ... it's not something you simply learn by heart beforehand!
But when I sat through the lecture, it felt really okay ... we repeated some grammatical constructions, and went through some questions, and I felt I knew the stuff then. There was nothing where I felt out-of-the-loop or anything like that. So judging from the lecture, I do know a lot of the stuff ...

After lectures we had a mentor meeting ... and that felt okay too! We were given a text to translate in pairs, and I think that worked out really well! It was a very well known text (Mark 8:27-33), but I still felt I could translate it in a good way, and there were only a few words I had to look up.

It felt great things worked out so nicely today, but I still feel really confused and insecure about the exam. It's not just a bad feeling though, because I felt the same way before the last exam, and that worked out really well!
I'll try not to go on and on about all this, fact of the matter is, I'm gonna study around the clock like a maniac until the exam, and then all I can do is hope for the best.
Just one thing is very annoying, the exam takes place between 3 and 8 in the afternoon!!! What idiot thought up that time?!!? *deep sigh* I really hate afternoon exams, so that's kind of frustrating! I guess the only good thing about it is that I can get a few more hours of studying in ...

Now I'm going back to Mark again!
Take care!

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My Life At The Moment!
Currently reading: Novum Testamentum Greace
Currently watching: Stargate SG-1 season 7 (Lost City)
Currently listening to: Nothing
My Plans for tomorrow: STUDIES!!!!

2 comments:

The Darkest Night said...

sounds like a busy day!
Good luck with your studies! (and yeah afternoon (or evening) exams are so annoying! I don't like them either....I much prefer to have them in the mornings...)

Jessica said...

Thanks ... I currently see the Greek texts whenever I close my eyes ... I still have TONS of stuff I want to get done before the exam, so I guess I can forget all about sleep for the next 24 hours or so *yawn* ... still, it'll be worth it if I get a good result ..

Right now, I'm actually happy about the lateness of the exam, because it will give me a few more hours to complete what I want to get done *lol* - but usually I'm all for morning exams!