Friday, November 5, 2010

FINAL EXAMS

Although we have about a month and a half left of the program the maddness of final exams has ensued!!!! The first of which is my sociological modern history class, which I am more than happy to be done with since it was practically the bane of my existence. With my overwhelming lack of motivation to study and to organize my life and thus keep up with important dates it was only natural that I would assume that my final would be next Monday rather than this past Monday. So in a frantic rush to read all of the 40 readings (most of which were more than 20 pages long) in one weekend our group of extranjero´s decided it would be a fantastic idea to split up the readings into four parts like we had done for the parcial. We proceeded to write up outlines for each reading and share them with the group so that we would know and understand the basic themes of each reading. This would have been a great idea if our procturing professor was going to ask us simply about the primary themes and ideas of the readings, on a general scale.




I suppose you can tell from my tone that I am less than thrilled with the idea of this exam... so on dooms day I arrive to the facultad building early so I can frantically look over the summaries and outlines we had typed up in the hopes that magically everything would just stick in my head. We waited as the first group to go in took a good hour to do what should have been a thirty minute oral exam, so needless to say we were kind of freaking out. Prior to our exam our professor told us we were going to have to take the oral in pairs rather than our group of four, so that is what we prepared for, but alas it is Argentina and they don´t necessarily like to follow through with what they say initially. When the time came for us to go our professor throws us quite the curve ball and tells us we will all be taking the exam together as a group of four. I should have been thrilled that I would have the support of all of my peers but instead I was terrified because the change was so last minute and unexpected (anyone in my family knows how well I deal with change...).



We sit down in our circle of desks and she begins asking us each to choose one reading from the 40 to summarize in detail, it was around this time that my mind pretty much went blank, I could remember not a single thing nor could I remember which titles corresponded with what readings. Double Damn so upon my turn I do as best as I can with what I can remember, and my professor just proceeds on to the next person. Granted it was the most bullshit I have ever said in my life, but it got me through. The second part consisted of our professor choosing a reading for us to summarize. She asks me to explain the major ideas of the reading about Argentine film and culture; which of course I didn´t read because it was completely inconsistent with the majority of the readings we were assigned. To make matters even worse when I asked her who the author of the piece was she just frowned and shook her head and muttered under her breath that SHE was the author and then some other things which went along the lines of stupid ignorant American...



I was dumbfounded and just began muttering a slew of random facts that I could think of about film and how it could possibly be relevant to Argentine culture, not knowing any of the titles or directors of any of the films. Peter (who was assigned to read the lecture) hung his head in shame as I miserably stumbled along my ridiculous summary.



Even though the exam was a filthy mess and I kind of looked like a giant ass we all passed, which is honestly the only thing that matters, I truly don´t plan on ever going to see what my grade was for the exam, I passed and that is truly all that matters.

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