Third Exam

Oh, my third exam did not go well today at all. I studied for it for about two hours a day for five days. That's ten hours. Plus about 8 hours of lecture in class and another 4 hours of lecture outside of class. Along with the 23 hours of SPSS tutorials. And yet, with all of that I sat down in the exam and everything must have just fluttered away from my little brain.

Half the time I was thinking, "What in the world does he want from me?" Along with the fact that I just don't do well in Multiple Choice Exams, the wording of the questions were really...wordy and thick. I just wanted to shout, "Ask me a straightforward question!" I went through all of the questions at the beginning of the lectures, you know those questions about what you were suppose to learn during the lecture, and answered all of them more in depth than the answers online. And yet, I am not confident. There were three...maybe four questions that I know I got correct...out of 60.

It happens every time I go in to do a multiple choice exam. I second guess myself instead of just jotting down my first impression. *sigh*

I don't want a good grade on this one. Not anymore. I just want to pass.

2 Down 2 To Go

As it turns out, my second exam was moved to today after I looked up the date, time, and place in the first week of January. I never thought to look again because I had it written down in two places. I'm just really, really thankfully that it didn't get moved to Tuesday at 9:00am since I would have missed it.

So far, I'm feeling pretty good. So good in fact that I am a little suspicious. You know when you think you've done really well, but then you get the final mark and feedback and it turns out you totally and completely misunderstood the question? That's the kind of feeling I'm having right now. On Monday when I flipped over the paper and looked through the choice of questions I had to answer...I knew them. And I walked out feeling like there wasn't anything else that I could have added into the essay. I put in what they said in lecture and even a few things that they didn't say in lecture and that I had read in background reading. And I felt the same today! I'm cautiously optimistic.

My next two exams are Thursday and Friday of next week. And oh am I having trouble studying for these. They were my two least favourite courses. I wish that they had stacked them differently so that at least one of my favourite courses would force me to study for the not so fun ones.

Well...I'm on a sort of streak and I don't want to ruin that. I suppose that could be my motivation.

First Exam of Third Year

Here we are. The morning of my first exam of the year and what am I doing? Sitting and playing a computer game. Well, I guess right now I'm writing this blog post (been a while huh?). My plan was to do some last minutes studying this morning before heading off to the exam hall for my exam that starts at noon...but I can't bring myself to do it. Last night between 5:30 and 6:00 I just thought, "I can't do this anymore." and put down my writing implements, put away journal articles, and closed the Blackboard webpage. I know I probably should have pushed through and done a few more hours of work, but I was just so...done. I will do a little before going in, but I'm not going to scramble around trying to cram a while bunch of facts into my brain. At this point, I know it or I don't.

My confidence level is abysmal. These exams are worth 75% of my grade for the course and I'm pretty sure that I have to get between 16 and 18 depending on the course to get the grades that I want this year. Fairly nerve wracking. Especially for someone who doesn't test well and who sometimes forgets things as soon as she reads them. Everyone keeps telling me that I'll be fine and I'm choosing to believe them, but I wish I could tell myself that everything will go smoothly.

I'm off to make sure I understand the different models of memory...maybe somewhere in there I'll discover why I don't remember so well.

4 exams:
January 14: Biological Psychology
January 15: Perception
January 24: Methods A (Statistics basically)
January 25: Psychological Assessment

I'm Still Here

It's been a while since I last posted. I guess the stress and responsibility of third year are getting to me. While I only have about 7 hours a week on campus for lectures and workshops, I'm doing background reading and the like for the classes, reports, and short essays that are do.

Speaking of reports and essays. I know that separate departments shouldn't be expected to coordinate their assignments and that sometimes you'll just end up with two papers due in the exact same week. I expect that when I'm taking classes from two different departments. But Psychology is all ONE department. You would think someone out there might have said, "Oh look! The third years have a practical report and a perception essay due on Thursday and Friday of the same week. We should probably push one of the back a couple days. Make one of them due on Monday of the next week." Of course that didn't happen and because my practical report advisor is so laid back my group is about a week behind the others. While they are getting their sections looked over and edited, we are just getting our data back. And I know that the perception thing is a max. of 600 words, but that's going to make it more difficult due to the word limit. *sigh*

Also, finding a computer on campus is so frustrating sometimes. Yesterday I decided to work on campus because I tend to get more writing done that way. I started off in the Hub and there was one free computer there except for the fact that someone was sitting at it reading. I mean really!? Couldn't she have been reading in the library or at one of the various tables and leave the computer to someone who needed to work on it? So I tried the library and as it always happens I spot a free computer on the first floor and start heading towards it. Just as I'm about three quarters of the way there someone who is standing a little closer and wasn't paying attention before turns around, spots it, and like runs to the seat. This always leaves me feeling like a small child or a teenage girl fighting over a cute boy; "It's mine! I saw it first!!" Usually after that it's an absolute miracle if I can find a computer in the library. I trek up the rest of the six flights of stairs and then trek back down feeling a little disheartened. Mostly because you see computers that have empty seats but have people's stuff at them. These computers can stand empty and logged out for sometimes over and hour as the person has decided to go take a smoke or eat some lunch or both and has just left their stuff to hold their computer and block all others' attempts at working. I did find one up on the fourth floor yesterday which was great. But still, I kinda wish there were library police or something. If someone has left their computer long enough for it to log itself out then they move their stuff to the front desk or something.

Anyway, my day today is filled with a 9am lecture (sleepy face), a hair appointment (I'm pretty darn shaggy), and then hours of working on the report and perception paper. I'm sure everything will get done, but I'm so ready for a short break. English always had a reading week where there wouldn't be any lectures or tutorials so that you could catch up on reading and work on essays. I wish that psychology had that too. It would be nice to sleep in all week for a change.

A Tough Weekend

This last weekend before classes start was a tough one. I don't want to go into too much detail as there is a little bit of a wound there. What I will say is that I'm trying to learn from it and trying very hard to be a better person after everything that happened. It sucks when one weekend can turn the excitement for a new year into feeling like that scared Fresher again who just wants to go home, snuggle with my dog, and never look back to the adventure that could have been.

Of course I won't be doing that. I'll push myself to stay afloat this first week of classes and, come Friday night, I'll fall into bed for what will hopefully be my first full night's sleep in over a week. I feel a little shit right now, but time heals all doesn't it? One day at a time and eventually I'll feel better. That's all I can do for now.

Speaking of the first week of classes, my schedule isn't the best. I have a 9am lecture on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday it is my only class of the day. I figure what I'll do is get a gym membership and go do some "gyming" from 10am to noon. Two hours three days a week sounds like something that would both help me sleep at night and keep me from cursing the Psychology department for making me wake up at 9am almost everyday for only an hour of class.

This semester I am taking the methods course (as always) and as for theory I have Psychological Assessment, Perception, and Biological Psychology. Turns out, didn't have as much of a choice as I thought. Must have misunderstood when people were talking about it last time. Ah well. Happens sometimes I guess.

Anywho, my first class of the year is the first Methods lecture and then later this afternoon I have the SPSS tutorial. I should probably go and shower and get ready for my year to begin. I guess there's still one good thing about this year; I live so close to campus I can start getting ready an hour before I have to leave and be fine. It's something. Even if the rest of the year is seeming bleak right now.

One day at a time.

Advisor Appointment

Today was my advisor appointment. It was almost depressingly straight forward. These are your courses, you can't take any outside classes this year,here are the induction meeting times, and have a good third year. He did also say that he say that I got some good marks and some not good marks and that he hoped I would get those not so good marks up to good marks. In my defense, all of my not so good marks were in courses that were not applicable to my degree which I only took because the course description looked cool. Turns out that it wasn't and I stopped caring. Hey, if I can pass well (if not great) when not caring and putting no effort into the work then I think I can manage getting good grades on something that I actually care about.

I have four courses each semester each worth 15 credits. At this point, I have no idea what these courses involve since my class schedule is not up yet. I'm sort of hoping that it goes up before Monday...since, you know, that's when classes are suppose to start.

I'd also really like it up in the next day because guess what. That's right! The Dell repair guy never came yesterday which means that I can only schedule appointments on the days when I can be in from 9am-5pm (like that'll happen). But since they really screwed up this last appointment I'm thinking I could probably say that since there are no days that I can be in or arrange for someone to be in for that length of time and since it was your fault for not contacting me on Wednesday you should work around my schedule this time. I at least hope that can happen.

It really is beginning to look like term time again.

Freshers Week

Well, Freshers Week started on Saturday when some of the freshers arrived and moved into their halls. This means that Aberdeen has come to life in the past couple of days. I totally forgot what a college town Aberdeen really is, but when the University isn't in session there are much less people walking the streets past nine. But this Saturday when we were walking back from the cinema we saw  group of freshers walking to the pub in their silly costumes. I guess we can't say they aren't organised as most of them had probably only arrived that afternoon.

The biggest part of Freshers Week for me since I'm a committee member of a society is the Societies Fayre. This is where all the societies set up stalls in a HUGE tent on the King's Pitch and try and get the new students to join. I think it's way more fun to work the fayre than to actually attend. But that's just me. Anyway, I got up at the ungodly hour of 7:45am to shower, dress, and get to campus by 9:00am to sign in our society so we didn't lose our stall. Then I spent the next hour and a half setting up the stall which actually involved a lot more sitting around than actual set up. Then the freshers slowly started to arrive and it was time to get to work in handing out my amazing fliers (not to toot my own horn or anything). We got a whole lot of people signed up to receive emails this week as reminders for our Freshers Events. I hope that many if not most of them decide to actually join.

The fayre ends at 3:00pm and even though it's only 2:00pm, I'm already home. Why? Because my new laptop broke and I'm waiting for the repair guy to come. I had a flatmate stay in this morning for me, but can't make them stay in all day and the repair technician can come any time from 9:00am to 5:00pm. *sigh* If they don't come there will be a long email written to Dell about scheduling appointments and not keeping them. Especially since the next one they'll probably make will be after classes start and I might not have a completely free day this year. They still have a few hours to get here and fix my brand new computer so we'll see.

Anyway, tonight will be Slains Castle Pub Quiz for the new people and I'm running on like four hours of sleep. Not by my own doing. I just haven't been able to sleep for the past few nights. There may be a nap in my future...or at least a gallon of coffee.