The Post Exam Entry

Yes, that’s right; my exams are over. They have been over since Wednesday, but I’ve only been able to get around to writing this entry now. Chris has one more exam left, so I am trying to contain my excitement – and failing miserably, I suspect. I volunteered to go with Chris’ gran to the hospital on Thursday, so my first real lay-in was Friday and today, and it was glorious. I can quite easily change my sleep timetable around if I need to get up early for something but otherwise, I will just get up and stay up late. As annoying as it is not being able to work due to my disabilities at times like this, it is a good thing.

I’m not sure if you will remember that last December I missed my exams and had to take them in August because I was so sick. Well, it seems that my body just likes being sick at this time of year. I don’t know if it’s the weather or the stress, or what, but I have had a sinus infection for months and months again. To be fair though, this time it probably would have gone away before my exams if the doctors had given me antibiotics. For some reason, doctors have suddenly jumped on this train of thought that says ‘antibiotics = bad’ because they are worried we will become immune to them. I don’t disagree with this, however, I do expect a doctor to read my file and recognise that I get chronic sinusitis and usually need a second dose of antibiotics. When I got an appointment with my own doctor, she didn’t seem too pleased that they had refused to give me them, and the next time I saw one of the other doctors they gave me a second dose of antibiotics without argument.

In August, I swore blind I would not miss my December exams again, but I have to admit I did waver after a couple of days of intense pain and constant sneezing. One or two sneezes aren’t an issue, but massive sneezing fits or sneezing every 10 minutes? IT HURTS. I was lucky enough that some of my university buddies were supportive and gave me some helpful stuff for studying when I was beginning to panic.

So…the exams themselves. I can say that I have passed English Literature and Comparative Literature. Due to being so ill and having such a small amount of time to actually study, I purposely put all my time and effort into English Literature. I need to get a certain grade balance between this term and next term to be able to study for honours. When I was at Leeds I ended up doing honours by default and only the final year grades mattered. So Comp Lit did get put on the back burner, in the sense that I didn’t learn any quotes and rambled a lot. I just need a C overall to pass for that.

My third subject, English Language, I have absolutely no confidence about. It was a class test rather than an actual exam, so Chris reckons that you can fail it and still pass the course. Normally, you have to get at least 35% in exams and coursework to pass a course. Fortunately, English Language is a two-part course that covers terms 1 and 2, which means the grades from both terms go together. In comparison, for English Lit, the grade for Term 1’s course is separate from Term 2’s. So as long as I make up the grade in term 2 I should be ok. There’s an essay worth 50% in Term 2, and I am already planning ahead to get most of my reading done for my other subjects so that I can really work hard on Term 2’s essays.

I have more to say but I’m still feeling pretty rough so I’ll leave all that to the next entry 🙂

Image Credits: Photo from Pexels.