Well, my winter break comes to an end as I sit at the airport waiting to board one of many planes back to Scotland. It has been a blessing of a break with family and friends in Oklahoma and Saskatchewan.
It has been a great three weeks. From a road trip across the Great Plains and its endless flat and foggy landscape; to the Queen City and a fantastic blizzard (snow!!!); and epic ice storm in Oklahoma. Wow, winter weather has been epic wherever I may be!
I want to thank my fantastic grandparents for the great road trip and hospitality. It was fabulous to see my family and friends (two years is too long between visits!).
And my parents. What a blessing they are! Their love and support mean the world to me. I won the lottery with them.
I am looking forward to a new spring semester of all new classes (or "modules"). This semester will require mega effort, but I am looking forward to the challenge. All new adventures to experience too. And a car to explore with!!! WooHoo! Here I go!
Slainte!
Photo: Sunset over Memphis, TN. You can see the ribbon of the Mississippi River in the distance.
Just hope that you don't have to take all of your exams the way the kids at Glasgow do: at the end of the year, after you've forgotten everything!
ReplyDeleteI had four modules in the Fall and I took 3 exams in January and I have 4 modules this Spring and will have exams in June. One big difference will be, we had 3 week Christmas break to study for exams, but in June there won't be a break. Last lectures the first week of June then exams the second week (I think this is how it is going to work out, time will tell). I shouldn't have time to forget much (I hope!)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that they're being sensible about it! The poor undergraduates here ... I just can't imagine how ANY succeed.
ReplyDeleteNew info learned today. Exams will start the week of May 31st, a week earlier than I thought. I just know the date for one exam at the moment, so maybe they spread exams over 2 weeks?? It would be nice if we finished a week earlier (summer break sooner :-) In the distance past I went to a Uni that had full year courses and in April when you were sitting exams, stuff you learned in the previous Fall was but a faint memory. Is that how it works at Glasgow Uni. It is a lot of material a class can cover in 8 months!!
ReplyDeleteSomething like that. At Glasgow, you do your first term, go home for Christmas, come back and turn in essays. You do your second term, turn in essays ... and then have a couple of months of review, or some rot. You sit exams in May/June for the entire year. It's insane.
ReplyDeleteThat said, they may be changing it to match up more with the US calendar, as it sounds your program has.
That is a different way of doing it. Bizarre really. In Canada, classes started in September with a week exams (for some classes) in December and a Christmas break, classes back in January, with a Reading Week in February and then classes wrapped up in early April and then 3 weeks of exams. The exam schedule was bizarre though. I had 3 exams back to back the first 2 days, then I had to wait til the end of April to take my last exam. Weird. In Oklahoma, classes start in mid August-December, then January til early May.
ReplyDeleteThe schedule here is a bit differnt because a lot of our lectures are research scientists in their fields and when the weather is nice (ie "summer"), they need to make the most of it out in the field, so classes start a bit later in September than most places. I like it here as we get lots of breaks. A week in October, 3 weeks for Christmas, 3 weeks between Semesters and 2 weeks at Easter. It's great and works for me!
That ice storm truly was epic, D. Nice way to put it. I'm enjoying your page. Thanks for mentioning it.
ReplyDeleteHey B! ;) Glad your enjoying it. Thanks for taking the time to read it!
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