Thursday, October 9, 2008

Life is... midterm-y.

This week is a little crazy for me. I have four midterms (all of them difficult). What's really ridiculous (other than the fact that I'm currently blogging, not studying) is that I didn't know about two of them until this week. Apparently, I'm stupid. I look at my syllabi's only to see the scheduled reading. The midterm thing totally escaped me.

Hopefully, I will deal. We all know I'm not the best at studying, but I think I know all the material. That is kind of a given, because all of my classes are about the same thing. (Latin America, doofus) Anyway, I have an anecdote to tell...

My ONE non-Latin America class is Modern European history. And it is worthless. What normally is an incredibly fascinating subject is made boring in this class. The professor hands out lists of terms at the beginning of class, and then... he just talks. Plus, there is no attendance taken. PLUS, there are only three assignments: an essay; the midterm; the final. PLUS!!! The tests are both take home tests.

Needless to say, it is very hard for me to attend that class.

BUT despite that, I actually do. Normally. I like to do my reading for my next class during the lectures. Last week, however, I found that some nasty virtual reading had snuck up on me for history of Mexico (the class after Modern Europe). So I skipped class on Monday to do the required reading that was online. I knew that logically, I missed very little by not going to class; but I just couldn't shake the feeling that I had.

I had.

My professor had handed out the take home midterms that day. Stupid Sarah just didn't check the schedule. I figured there had to be something I could do, so I went to speak with my professor on Wednesday before class. The man was beyond lenient. I just told him that I had missed class (didn't give a good excuse) and asked for the midterm. He was delighted to give it to me. He even said that because of the circumstances (THERE WERE NONE!) I could have the weekend to work on it. The moral of the story: do the wrong thing, get a reward. I don't feel terrible about it, because I listened to the man talk about the meeting the Queen of England for a really long time after that. But I still am deeply indebted to this crazy, Queen-loving man.

-Sarah

PS. For all you "Jeff fans," he is doing fine. No midterms, only cuteness.

2 comments:

Jeff said...

I was reading your blog while writing my second essay and thought how true it is about our class. The difference is that you look for a class with meaning where as I am looking just to get done with it and move on towards graduation.
-Jeff

Ashley said...

Hey Sarah!
That's really annoying about your teacher! I hate those kinds! I really don't like when you think the class is going to be amazing and then the teacher just sucks. Its pretty much unfair and disappointing. I love Euro!
Good luck with all your midterms and all! :)