Ok so my blog is slightly late to be submitted, I’ve just been working crazy hard. I have midterms coming up. Midterms are something of a misnomer, to the uninitiated (i.e. me a few weeks ago) the midterms should be in the middle of the course, i.e. half way through and therefore only one per module… Nope turns out that there are two of them and that they are a third and two thirds through the semester. At first glance this seems like a lot of exams; 3 per module, plus quizzes (up to ten each also contributing to your grade), with five modules that’s 15 exams per semester plus up to fifty quizzes.
While this is a highly intensive amount, I prefer it, like it even, in contrast to the one exam 2-3 coursework setting that most keele modules opt for. I feel that the intensive and dispersed nature of the exams sets students up for a better grade. Such that if the exams are sat when the topics and information is fresh and new, without being compounded in such a way as to complicate the original concept, the understanding of the concept itself can be tested and not diluted with ineffective revision, topic overloading & confusion with other topics. Plus the dispersion of the exams gives a better knowledge of how one is doing with the module and whether a specific module needs comparatively more work than another.
It hasn’t all been hard work mind, I’ve been to several hockey games recently the UofA has won every game I’ve been to. We recently played our closest and biggest rivals the University of Calgary, we beat them with a score differential of 3 goals each time! (5-2 on Friday, 4-1 on Saturday). The sport is fantastic to watch, having never seen a hockey match (ice hockey as we would call it) I was unsure of what to expect. I was expecting a civilised 10 aside game. In fact it is a rough, raw and insatiable sport, violence is pretty much encouraged and there are few enough rules that I am confident I understand every single one of them. The game is played with five players plus a goalie and there are a host more players on the bench. The players take turns to play, swapping out like every five minutes, because the game is so intense they would be collapsing left, right and centre if they were playing the full session in one go. The game is in three periods of twenty minutes and has a fifteen minute break between each period. The fast paced action and violent manner has me hooked. Having never really enjoyed watching a sports game before this is one game I seem to be able to get my teeth into, however since my mother banned me from playing; for fear of my safety in a foreign country, I can’t get involved, this is one sport I’m happy to just watch.
The time utilisation here seems different, while back in england one is usually used to getting to class or work around 09:00 and finishing around 17:00, out here we still finish around 17:00 (most classes) but I have a lot of days where lectures start at 08:00. This to me seems fabulous, I’m quite a morning person, once I’m awake that is. I have to wake up at around 06:30 to allow an hour to shower, shave & dress and a further 30 minutes to walk to campus picking up a coffee, a doughnut and a banana on the way. Lectures are an hour Monday, Wednesday and Friday. But an hour and a half Tuesday and Thursday. This variety suits me, but some other exchange students seem confused. The modules I’m taking here are just fantastic, I’m so pleased, I have a real variety of topics and approaches, yet there are large overlaps between classes which I find really helps me to compound my knowledge and learn better. Now all I have to do is find an alarm or combination of alarms that I can’t turn off in my sleep, even having three different alarms hidden strategically around the room, the tone of them is such that I can turn them off without waking up; a feat I would be quite impressed with, if it wasn’t so darn exasperating.
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