Exam blues ... well purple

There is a saying around Wits that if you haven't started studying for exams by the time the Jacaranda's bloom then there is a good chance you may not pass the exams. Given the tendency to weight exams heavily in the overall mark, this concerns most students.



The Jacarandas on campus are old and huge and beautiful. Their purple flowers are like the shedding of a drab winter coat, coming into flower around mid-October. When exams start in the second week of November (on the normal time-table) then the warning in the myth above is enough to spur-on even some of the most recalcitrant students. However, this saying has never been more true than this year.

Exams started nearly a month early this year, making space in the timetable for the 2010 enforced shut-down in the middle of the year. So this year the start of exams coincided with the start of the purple flush. If you hadn't made an effort to study, well, uhmn, then maybe there was no hope. Exams ending, in the first week of November, will probably the coincide with the falling of the purple blooms. And then if definitely would have been too late.

Reading writing and arithmetic

I'm working on a knowledge review for the bigger project of which my research forms part of and it's due ... oh heck at the end of September. The reading part took a few months, in between my teaching responsibilities. I had done well and was ready to get writing late September. Like I said I was ready, but I was not necessarily willing. Procrastination crept in for about 2 days and I called it 'not knowing where to start'.

In popped an old visitor that I actually enjoy entertaining - arithmetic. With heaps of data to analyse at this stage of my research and a meeting with my supervisor - Mary - looming, some number crunching was far more enticing than writing.

I'd been scrabbling around with the writing for a few days and had some thoughts on paper, when Mary handed me a great little book to look over: The Scribes Journey by Cecile Badenhorst. Just reading the introduction and doing the playing with the first exercise got me excited about reformulating the bits I had done and adding the rest of the knowledge review. I also had about 8 blog ideas rush into my head at once. Mary also gave me another book by Cecile about writing a dissertation and it's already in my shopping basket at my favourite online store.

The first full draft knowledge review is now on Mary's desk for review and so should be distributed before the next project meeting early in November.

So this is what I learned through this exercise. Reading writing and arithmetic sometimes appear out of order and that's just fine. I also know that I'm OK with reading, it takes me a while to do, partly because I get distracted easily and partly because there's so much out there to read. I'm getting better at arithmetic because it's a practise game and I know I'm smart enough to get to grips with numbers and sometimes even statistics! And there's no pretending anymore, with good works like "The Scribe's Journey", writing can also be fun, freeing and painless. I also know that the first draft may be a list of ideas scribbled on some paper, it's seldom a master piece right off the bat. Just writing something gets me to what I want to say. Here's to balancing the threesome of reading, writing and arithmetic into a relatively pain-free thesis, and many more regular blog posts.

If you've got something to say, even if there's no one to say it to, write it any way. That which seems trivial to you now maybe profound only 5 minutes from now.