In Which I Do What I Do Best
You can blame this whole master’s exam thing for the decrease in the quality and frequency of my posts lately. In fact, for the past two weeks I haven’t had a truly restful night’s sleep or truly relaxing moment, again, all because of the exam that was drawing inevitably nearer. I don’t feel it is at all an exaggeration to say that IT CONSUMED MY LIFE, this exam.
No, I wasn’t studying during that lost time. Studying isn’t something I’m very good at. It’s hard and boring, so I do it as little as possible, and the little I do is almost completely ineffectual. I’m flattered you think I’m a studying kind of guy, because I think studiousness is hot. But no.
What I’m really good at is worrying, which is why I devoted the past two weeks to it. Instead of studying, or enjoying myself, or eating, or sleeping, I worried. These were high-quality, full-time worries, like:
ME
(to self)
What if they ask me to prove the Sylow Theorems? I mean, I know the proof has to do with the class equation, but . . .
(Cue vision of me failing to prove the Sylow Theorems while my professors look on, scowling.)
Aauggghhhhh!
COWORKER
(offstage)
Is everything all right in there?
or
ME
(looking through textbook)
All right. I think I’ve mastered that subject.
(turns page)
But wait! What about this? Do I need to know this as well? What if I get into the exam and they ask me questions about this, and all I did was glance at it just now?
(feverishly turns more pages)
And what about this? And this?? And THIS????
(lets textbook fall, then follows it to the floor, curling up in a ball on the hardwood and sobbing)
But, like all good things, this period of agonizing self-doubt and mindless confusion had to end at last. And it did, yesterday morning, when I walked out of my master’s exam and sat down in the math building corridor to await the verdict. How had it gone? Well, in a word, terribly. In another word, apparently not that badly, because when my panel of two professors came out, they congratulated me for passing.
How terribly could it have gone if I passed? Let’s just say that if I passed, I don’t see how anyone could fail. I certainly would not have passed me. As usual, it’s a good thing I’m not the one making the decisions, eh?
Like
July 4th, 2007 at 10:37 am
CONGRATULATIONS!!
I empathize completely. I was a WRECK before I defended my thesis and couldn’t eat for two days. All I could stomach was water and the occasional saltine.
Afterwards, I found out that my committee wouldn’t have let me go to defense unless they knew they were going to pass me. I wished I had known that before.
Anyway, the point of this is CONGRATULATIONS!! YOU PASSED! And now you get to do it all over again, but in a different subject. You’re nuts. :D
July 4th, 2007 at 11:54 am
“You’re nuts.”
Yes, yes I am. Fortunately, the capstone requirement for my library science master’s program involves an essay exam—which I plan on passing with flying colors— instead of an oral exam. Writing I can do, no sweat. It’s the whole “getting up and embarrassing myself in front of my professors” thing that caused me so much stress this time.
But in any case, that’s two whole years away, which in my mind is barely distinguishable from eternity. So I’ll essentially NEVER have to worry about it!
July 4th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
congratulations! How nice to know right away. I have 2 more weeks of agony before they let me know how I did on my MCAT. And the #1 question that bothers me a little is “how do you think you did?” I have no idea. What if all the answers I thought were right were wrong?
July 4th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Wow, that’s an actual question on the test? I don’t know what I would have said if my professors had asked me that—or how they would have used my answer, either. Yikes.
Good luck, Shaun.