Personal Blogs

It's just over 48 hours until T206 draws to it's conclusion with the dreaded exam.  I'm not that worried though. In fact, I'm pretty confident about it.  I've got some past papers, analysed them, took them apart, learned from them and applied the work I've done for the past 8 months. 

One thing I would change is that I'd like the exam to be today or, better still, have happened 2 weeks ago because that's when I was at my peak as far as knowledge retention is concerned.  Since then I've been treading water in the learning department and this is extrmely difficult.  Trying to retain facts in a world full of distractions, each of which threatens to push vital exam knowledge out of your ears, is a frustrating balancing act.  There are only so many times you can re-read sections of textbook and I've seen the DVDs more times than I've seen Star Wars, and I can remember more from Star Wars.

So this morning, having decided that all I'm now doing is revising in circles, I've put the textbooks away and will just keep my cribs to hand for casual reference.  A bit of a jog for fabric heat loss calculations, nuclear decay, hydrocarbon combustion and hydro calcs might be advisable in the last few hours.

Another thing I'm not so keen on is the exam location.  A multi-cultural faith centre in the suburbs of Cardiff?  There are a plethora of colleges, schools and universities with suitable facilities in the area so why this?  It's difficult to find and awkward to get to, particularly by public transport.  A message to the OU-THIS ISN'T IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF YOUR STUDENTS!!.  Worse for me is that it's right by the hospital in which my father died from a hospital borne infection 2 years ago so, if there are windows in the exam room facing it, I'm going to have to ask to face away from it.

I'm under enough exam stress as it is.