...And one to go. I sat the first of my exams this morning. Of course I'm not happy with the final result, but that was only to be expected. Besides, how much can they really expect from two hours' writing time?
I took my general question today, and wrote on the history of German Jews under the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. I started writing on homosexuals, but abandoned that effort after about 15 minutes. I could've done well with it, I think, but I know the literature on the Jews better--not to mention that there's more of it. Of course, given that fact, it would have been easy to answer the last part of my question, which was how looking through the lens of the experiences of the subject group would add to our understanding of German history. Six of the one, half a dozen of the other.
I had quite a rude shock at the end of the two hours. The proctor told me when I was done to save my work to the A (floppy) drive and bring it down to the office. So I hit "CTRL-S" after making my last few changes (as I had been all throughout the process, being the paranoid type), shut down Word, popped out the floppy disk, then put it back in and checked to see that the file was there. It was. Clicked on it, and it opened, and there was...my question. The eight pages of material I'd been typing on for the past two hours? Nowhere to be seen. Aaaaaaaagh!
Fortunately, the graduate secretary is used to us graduate students freaking out in circumstances like that. The file was safely stored on the C: drive, and all she had to do was transfer it to the floppy. Be still, my barely beating heart!
On Thursday I trek back down to the university to take the second exam, which will be to expand on my thesis research. And then the anxious waiting begins.
Yikes! My heart was beating a little fast there, too, when I thought you might have lost your essay! I'm glad it all worked out, and I'm sure you did fine. Good luck tomorrow!
Posted by: Andrea | Tuesday, 28 March 2006 at 20:28
It's Thursday morning, not tomorrow. And I'm sure your heart wasn't beating nearly as fast as mine was when I saw nothing but the question come up on opening the file! As I remarked to Renee as we were walking back down to the history grad office so she could print off a copy of the exam for me to take home, that was the closest I ever want to come to one of those "standing in front of an auditorium naked" nightmares in real life.
I've gotta say, though, it seems a little...anti-climactic. All this fuss and bother, all this reading, for one question, which I'm to answer in two hours (I mean, really--how likely is it that I can manage anything truly comprehensive in that short a time-frame?), and which results in a grand total of eight pages' worth of writing? Seems like it should be more involved. If it hadn't meant waiting another semester to graduate, I'd have seriously considered doing the new format, whereby you do the reading and then write a historiographical essay on a topic you and your examiner work out--and you have a longer period to work on the essay. I don't remember how much longer, but anything longer than two hours would be better.
Posted by: Michael | Tuesday, 28 March 2006 at 21:18
Two hours? Ouch! This sounds more like a test of your ability to think and type very quickly!
It's a stressful time for you, all this hurry-up-and-wait. Pamper yourself a bit; you deserve it!
Posted by: andante | Tuesday, 28 March 2006 at 22:43
I would have a good opening paragraph in two hours, not an essay.
It sounds like you were using Word, so the Control-S would have put a copy somewhere, if it wasn't on the floppy, although I carry my my little USB memory stick with me at all times to be sure I have a take-away copy of whatever I'm doing.
Hang in there, it's almost over.
Posted by: Bryan | Tuesday, 28 March 2006 at 22:48
Does a 12-ounce Guinness count as pampering? ;-9 Today it's a bit of laundry, some telly, a little non-comps reading, and organizing my thoughts for tomorrow. And tonight I'm taking the online Jeopardy! test--maybe I'll get lucky.
Bryan--Yes, it was Word. (Big enough problem in my book, since I despise that software. A couple of times an inadvertent keyclick did something weird to my document, and I had to hunt to figure out how to get it back. And the keyboard shortcuts for special characters didn't work worth a damn, which meant a lot of menu work just so I could spell things like Anschluß correctly.
Posted by: Michael | Wednesday, 29 March 2006 at 09:14