And so I'm back...from outer space...

[annwfyn]

Exam over.

Oxford don't allow you to take water into an exam, apparently. You get your writing implements, university card and the hat.

University is now finished until October.

2/3 of my Masters is done.

It's odd. I don't feel as jubilant or as bouncy as I thought I would. I'm just feeling tired, and weirdly tearful. A bit of me wants to say 'is that it? All that work, all that effort, and what does it come down to? Me sitting in a room for three hours in a stupid robe thinking about how much my hand hurts and how sore my throat it.'

I think it's come down from having been wound up for so long. Now I just feel tired and a bit icky. I've got a week to go before I leave for Australia, and gods, I'm looking forward to that. I want to get away from all of this. I want to clear my head out and work out what's worth worrying about and what's just so much crap.

Exam over.

I said that already, didn't I?

I think now would be a good time for me to go home...

Comments

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

You know, I think some of that is an undergrad thing. Not entirely sure why, but undergrads seem to get into that kind of thing a lot more. The archaeology lot I had exams with all wandered in without a carnation between the lot of them.

Oh - on another note - what do the gowns with sleeves mean? I've seen a couple around and I can't figure it out.

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Different gown designs refer to different levels of academia. I think the ones you're talking about are Scholar's gowns, which you get to wear if you get a First in your first-year exams. Might be a graduate gown though.

In a lot of colleges, if you're a Scholar, you're expected to be on a rota to read grace at Formal Hall, and do other faintly school-prefecty things.

Oh, and you're presumably expected to bring your own blotting paper to exams, since you lose the 'ribbons' (the random useless looking tails that hang off the shoulders) of a plain undergrad gown, which are in fact apparently there for the purpose of blotting ink ;)

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Well, yes - if you don't have a whole series of exams, there's little point differentiating between first & last ;)

Also, to be honest, a lot of grad students don't get involved in so much of the student culture as the undergrads, so they may be blithely underaware/unbothered by the tradition.