My Thoughts on Exams, Among Other Things

Hey everybody, due to the long trip back yesterday, I was quite tired to do practically anything, so here's the lowdown on my last week at University this semester.

So to start off, Japanese was up first; and in a similar format to one of my progress assignments, it was actually completed quite quickly within the allotted three hours, however after going back to anything missed and taking educated guesses, I left about two hours into the exam, since the general idea with any language exam is that if you can't remember a word or phrase, you generally can't suddenly remember it halfway. But there's no harm in trying. After doing some calculations I'll probably be getting a B+, although I'd prefer a A- at least.

Next was Physics. And to be honest it felt easier than expected. Considering I'd slightly dropped off a bit towards the two-third mark before picking up again, it was good news to know that exactly two questions contained material that wasn't my best (since we are permitted to answer 10 out of 12 questions), and that was quickly skipped. But since I'm not exactly pursuing a career involving thin film diffraction or electrons moving between energy levels, I'm not too fussed. In terms of overall results it's a bit hard to say how this one will turn out. There's about 100 in the class, I don't know how well everyone's been doing throughout the semester since have been taking it more seriously than others. So I'm hoping for at least an A-.

Linear Maths. An engima of a subject, in my opinion - in the beginning I thought it was like trigonometry and algebra gone mad, but I never thought then that I'd be finding my Early-Friday-Morning exam marks among the top of the class near the end. But it could've been that illusion that led me and my study group astray, and quite possibly the rest of the class - since it was widly concevied to be one of the hardest tests yet. It was like the start of semester all over again: not knowing what was happening or what went there. And I'm not blaming this on the study habits, since we did do study, thank you very much. Anyway, considering my past performance, it's looking like an A-, but an A might be nice.

And finally the multichoice-inclusive subject that is Introductory Statistics. Wonderful to see that even though my Year 13 Statistics results were just above the rest of the class last year, apparently it goes a long way at University, contributing towards a first place result in the first mid-term test, and a first equal placing in the second. The projects weren't to shabby either, although an apparent lack of detail caused me recieve only 90% of the maximum possible mark. No matter, the exam went smoothly, although a later look at some of the multichoice questions made me a little concerned. Hoping for my first A+, and nothing lower than an A-. Maybe even top of the class, I don't know...

And now with all that out of the way, I'm on holiday, and you probably aren't! I couldn't exactly call it a holiday though, since the feel of a constant breeze throughout is anything but comforting, but it's still something to be glad that I'm back home for the time being.

And now a new section that I'm hoping to put into posts further down the track, called "My Thoughts On...", which features me and my verbose nature commenting on numerous happenings around the place. Enjoy.

My Thoughts On... The Pro-Whaling Hoax
So my first opinion section is all about this incident on TVNZ's Breakfast show where an alleged pro-whaling campaign was being interviewed on nationwide television. Now, I never saw the actual event take place, I was actually awoken to the fact today while flicking past one of many channels, and coincidentally landing on C4 at the time. The gist of it is that the C4 show in question decided it would be a good laugh to launch a pro-whaling campaign on the internet and ask for viewers to sign a petition. Ok fine, go ahead. It was then when multiple newspapers picked up on this when TVNZ wanted in on this story and got one of the C4 hosts to appear on air and talk about the whole 'campaign'. For several hours this story was repeated on the hourly news bulletins thoughout the morning, before they picked up on the joke and during the midday bulletin apologised for the mix-up. And not to mention all the front page placement this had on all the nation's papers the next day.
My opinion is this: do these guys not have enough time on their hands? Honestly, with all this time and preparation spent couldn't they be using it to make better shows on C4? With all the stuff on there already that has been tweaked especially to look under-budget, I feel that it's like they don't care about presentability. And furthermore, what was the objective of all this? People already watch you on C4, wht is the point of trying to invade Channel One? Leave them do their thing, and let whoever watches you continue watching.

And in further, blog-related news, a couple of feature posts this month, one this Wednesday, the the quite-possibly-eagerly-anticipated post on June 23. But for now enjoy your week and this video.

The (Late) Weekend Watch
Nice little bit of comedy, coupled with the fact that loads of pop songs follow the same chord progression.