Par
- Exam tip 1: Wear an old shirt to the exam. Odds are you will be sweating generously due to stress, heat, caffeine, exertion and exam weather. When you come home, wash the shirt Immediately so that the essence of victory your body has distilled may diffuse to all your other shirts, soaking them in success. Soap will remove the odourful portions, leaving you smelling – and feeling – like a CHAMP.
- Exam tip 2: If, as is customary, you feel the need to get up at some uncivilised hour, but do not trust your groggy commitment, place an alarm in your shower. Position this alarm as far from your bed as possible, but ensure that it is accessible with little effort. This position will ideally take the form of a shower shelf or some such. The logic behind this is that the alarm will have you out of bed, and actually standing in the shower by the time you quell it, making the nearest logical source of comfort the shower itsself. Foreknowledge of this should aid its effectivity. Probably works best with mid-winter exams when the ealry morning air is at it’s coldest. Winter exams. Ha!
- Exam Tip 3: Breakfast is .. about as crucial as anything else. Probably. As above, you are going to endure a number of waking periods who’s dim eastern faces you will not be glad to see. In this foul-humoured state, breakfast will quickly become tiresome. Stick to the unimaginative classics: weetabix, rice crispies. Avoid muesli.
========== IV.ii ==========
fivefivenine
—Welcome to my documentary of the last days of BSCGNIV.ii: writ here in code for all to see. Today is the first day of the examns, and I do not remember stress being this intense. I resorted, in my empty house, to eating bread soda to neutralise my stomach lest the rancid contents work out in the exam hall, and flood my socks in lukewarm tea and weetabix: a true seven hour breakfast of champions. I’m in quite a bit of trouble for these exams, completely due to me own lax attendance and lack of preparation. THe first exam is Cell and Developmental Biology, a delightful mass of ill-named protein interactions. As it stands (T-2hr) I have about half the notes hastily covered. Why do I do this, you may ask incredulously. Why indeed, considering the effort of repeating this last year, to avoid just this situation. I have no explanation. I return to my studies, the next paragraph should be results of the day.
☢☣☠
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elevenfivenine
—Fuuuuu. My ignorance astounds me, both in the practical sense and in terms of course material. I’m glad then, that I study alone. More when i return after this exam, Genomics and applications. Fucker…
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twelvefivenine
—Yesterday went (comparably) well, thus my humour is much improved. Todays exam is the facile Molecular Ecology. This was the sort of module I had been waiting for all through academia. Not only was it hosted by the most delightful people to ever come together under one acronym (ZEPS), it was run by the wonderful Prof. Tom Cross and previously titled “Evolutionary genetics”. Bang bang bang. This module talked about the interesting things: evolutionary trends, conservational cloning, leopards (did you know leopards are so drastically inbred they will not reject skin grafts from one another? Their molecular makeup is that similar.). You will understand my slight confusion then when I went to perhaps six lecture sessions. Twice. Thankfully, the lectures are very straighforward, and Prof. Cross provided me with the course notes. Now all I have to do is pack a module into ~6 hours. 
Now, I know I should be writing, but I must rant briefly about one of the lecturers whose drivel I am wantonly cramming into my brain. This woman… Is awful. She simply doesn’t know what she’s talking about. We know more than she does. She teaches plant biology, and her mouth is a small funnell which spews corporate GM propaganda. She… simply misunderstands basic, basic things. She is the female teacher you always hated. She is a Dawn French caricature. And I’ll bet her doctorate is fake.
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twelvefivenine
—Appologies for the lack of of post yesterday, but no-one knows this is here so all is well. As the front post currently says, today feels long. The exam for which I spent the day preparing, Molecular genom/etics was quite reasonable, and some parts I answered quite well.
While I sit crouched in the ignored rush of the exam hall, the reliable indicator as to the status of my exam is always the voice which composes the answer in my mind. For instance, the first section today was voiced by the head of my department, to whom the question corresponded. Delightful. The second portion did not proceed with such ease, and I do not remeber who voiced it.
Leaving the exam I was simply glad that I had crossed the halfway point, both in this, the thickest part of the exam session (cf://weekofhell), and the actual exam season; I now have only 4 of 8 remaining. At dinner, I was explaining Pulse Field Gel Electrophoresis, which I had edited on wikipedia (see, I’m not just arrogantly linking about) that morning instead of studying, and actually came up in the exam. As I was decribing it, making exasperated hand movements, I realisedthatIhadcompletelymissedthepointofthequestionasIactuallydescribedittomyfamilyohforchrists’
It darkens my recollection somewhat. Fuck.
