Ideas From R.ANG

Just woke up from a 30 minute nap. Feeling slightly refreshed, although there isn’t much refreshment going round for a sleep-deprived, frustrated, and overwhelmingly underprepared mind.

How do I feel now? My mind feels like as if I’ve just walked through the dark forest in the dead of night to move from base to FUP, and now I’m expected to assault the objective in the next 30 minutes. Given a little breather, I attempt to consolidate my thoughts and remember the strategies and plans laid out hours before. Yet, the fatigue and ambiguity of the plan is getting at me. I’m a wreck.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to come out of this alive, but this objective won’t take itself. Might as well give it one last hurrah and charge it down with my last burst of fire. Come dawn, the hill will be taken, no matter the cost, no matter the method, no matter the losses.

I’ll take the remaining time now to review the plan in my head again. No matter how vague it is, I have to believe that it will be sufficient for my cause. I cannot afford to be paralyzed for my inadequate preparation. I’ll just have to advance, one bound at a time.

I’ve set aside two pills and two doses of chewing gum. I’ll need them for the fight. I’ll need everything that I have got. Let’s do this.

The lull period in between my fruitless attempts to prepare for the evolutionary genetics exam. This is so shitty I don’t even know where to begin.

There’s this odd lump hanging somewhere in my throat and it’s killing me. I don’t even know how else I should prepare for the exam now. Sigh.

10 more hours, and I’ll be free (for now at least)

(Source: whatshouldwecallgradschool)

Gah all this evolutionary bio doesn’t make any sense to me. Suddenly makes dev bio look super easy. Shit.

Am really gonna wing this exam tomorrow. Damn it.

9+ hours left to prep. Hugh Laurie, thanks for your music. It’s keeping me sane. Really.

If there’s such a thing as ‘studying till your head explodes’, I think I’m soon reaching that point. I am so tired from trying to work out answers to these developmental biology essay questions in past year exams. I feel like just going in for the exam and getting it over and done with.

I feel like my brain’s oversaturated with information, yet it is still so empty. I barely know the details of what is going on (in terms of the broader picture in the class. OK I know some details but I hardly think it will be enough to come up with an entire essay answer). I hate this.

Which is why I am now on tumblr for a temporary getaway. And some stress relief and banter time.

I think I’m in a love-hate relationship for the UK education system. I love it for its clear overall structure, depth of coverage of material, and the minimal overlap in terms of content taught.

But I hate it for basically 99% of the things they do: exams which focus less on problem solving but more on regurgitation of facts, classes with poorly defined learning objectives (ok to be fair only some of them are like that), the massive distance between teacher and student, the lack of questions being raised in class, the incredibly little amount of class contact time (yes, for once I actually wished I spent more time in class), the amount of “independent learning” we are expected to do - basically telling us to go read the textbook on your own and figure things out and we expect you to know this stuff when we ask for it in exams. Essays with poorly defined expectations and marking schemes other than the generic “OK if it has insight and some critical analysis it will get a first-class”. The lack of continual assessment to help one self-check to make sure that one is on track and understands the class material proper. Here, it’s sink or swim: if you don’t get it on your own, you wouldn’t really know until the final day before the exam (or you go bug the lecturer for help, I guess). I could go on and on about the things that I detest, but I’ll just summarize it as my clear discomfort for the academic culture here.

Now I know I’m going to draw a lot of flak from people who criticize me for not being able to learn at a university level; surely as an adult I should be expected to learn things on my own and rely less on spoon-feeding. But the issue is not on spoon-feeding or not. It’s about whether lecturers are providing a quality education that prepares me for the future. I simply don’t get that vibe here. A number in class, just another head going through 3 years of university.

I don’t want to be a number. I want to learn. I want to be a better person through my time in college, not stuck doing essays and exams which I will forget about when I leave this place.

6 months ago, I made a decision to answer the question I’ve been pondering about since the day I reviewed my university offers in early 2009. Now, I am happy to have my answer. I am so glad that I went against my gut instinct to go for rankings.

…

10 minutes till breakfast time. Let me cool off from my notes for now till I get back from chow. Still got to commit as much of that development stuff to memory and hope that it shows up in the exam. If it doesn’t… okay nevermind let’s not think about that.

Still got evolutionary genetics tomorrow too. Got 12 hours to prep and memorize all the crap that I have NOT finished studying. FML.

2 days of exams. Starting tomorrow. And I’m horribly underprepared.

I haven’t felt this underprepared in a long time. It almost feels like I am going to fail both finals.

And it doesn’t help that my body acknowledges the stress by throwing me into all sorts of weird dreams every night and disturbing my sleep. Each time, the dreams become more and more real. Is this lucid dreaming?

I am seriously underprepared. I will only blame myself - and Football Manager.

Just can’t wait for all this shit to be over, seriously.