"I don't wanna fuck about, I want a good time and that's why I'm out"
Since I last updated my LJ, I have had both my German and Japanese oral exams. I'd describe both of them as "mediocre".
The German one involved conversations about topics I had chosen and prepared beforehand, which wasn't difficult per se, but did involve me being very hesitant, repeating the same words and phrases quite a lot, and inevitably making a ton of grammar errors. It didn't feel like a total disaster at least.
The first part of my Japanese oral - the presentation - did feel like a total disaster. I kept forgetting what I'd planned to say and struggling to find my place in my notes, and then I forgot a bit and had to apologise and go back to it... Then I got the "One minute left" sign while I had two whole slides still to go. The rest of it was all fine though: I ignored my notes and had a decent go at summing up the rest of my points in under a minute, and then I had little trouble answering questions about my presentation topic and general issues. Much as with the German oral I'm sure I made a ton of mistakes, but at least I was actually talking which was a massive improvement over the beginning of the exam. Hopefully I managed to pull it back.
I have yet to even start my Kafka essay.
So, 19 days to go! The next five of which will be rather unpleasant. God, it's only 5 days? I have to write a 3000 word essay in German and revise (read: cram) for three exams that I'm thoroughly unprepared for, one day after the other. Come Wednesday afternoon I'm either going to be very worn out or despairing at how badly my exams went. Or both.
On a different note, tonight I took an entirely undeserved break (which I hoped would be more deserved when I bought the ticket) to see a band called Hadouken! in the student union. Obviously I was drawn to them by the awesome name, but I downloaded some of their music the other day and it turned out to be addictive as hell, so I decided on a whim to see them play live. Here's one of the videos that sold me:
The gig was a lot of fun, even if I went into it pretty exhausted from insufficient sleep and the hot hot weather. It's music you want to dance to, and I did much dancing, plus a little moshing too. The crowd were really into it, so the atmosphere was great. The crowd were also a lot more colourful than I'm used to! The bands I typically go and see, everyone's dressed in black (and only black), which I'll admit is kind of boring even though I do the same, so this was a nice change. There was even some eye candy: the vocalist is pretty cute and he spent most of the set with his top off.
So, yeah, great evening. It almost makes up for having to write that godforsaken Kafka essay tomorrow.
The German one involved conversations about topics I had chosen and prepared beforehand, which wasn't difficult per se, but did involve me being very hesitant, repeating the same words and phrases quite a lot, and inevitably making a ton of grammar errors. It didn't feel like a total disaster at least.
The first part of my Japanese oral - the presentation - did feel like a total disaster. I kept forgetting what I'd planned to say and struggling to find my place in my notes, and then I forgot a bit and had to apologise and go back to it... Then I got the "One minute left" sign while I had two whole slides still to go. The rest of it was all fine though: I ignored my notes and had a decent go at summing up the rest of my points in under a minute, and then I had little trouble answering questions about my presentation topic and general issues. Much as with the German oral I'm sure I made a ton of mistakes, but at least I was actually talking which was a massive improvement over the beginning of the exam. Hopefully I managed to pull it back.
I have yet to even start my Kafka essay.
So, 19 days to go! The next five of which will be rather unpleasant. God, it's only 5 days? I have to write a 3000 word essay in German and revise (read: cram) for three exams that I'm thoroughly unprepared for, one day after the other. Come Wednesday afternoon I'm either going to be very worn out or despairing at how badly my exams went. Or both.
On a different note, tonight I took an entirely undeserved break (which I hoped would be more deserved when I bought the ticket) to see a band called Hadouken! in the student union. Obviously I was drawn to them by the awesome name, but I downloaded some of their music the other day and it turned out to be addictive as hell, so I decided on a whim to see them play live. Here's one of the videos that sold me:
Click to viewThe gig was a lot of fun, even if I went into it pretty exhausted from insufficient sleep and the hot hot weather. It's music you want to dance to, and I did much dancing, plus a little moshing too. The crowd were really into it, so the atmosphere was great. The crowd were also a lot more colourful than I'm used to! The bands I typically go and see, everyone's dressed in black (and only black), which I'll admit is kind of boring even though I do the same, so this was a nice change. There was even some eye candy: the vocalist is pretty cute and he spent most of the set with his top off.
So, yeah, great evening. It almost makes up for having to write that godforsaken Kafka essay tomorrow.