Midsessional Exams

Right after Christmas on the Monday I had my first midterm/midsessional exam in the UK. It is a bit unusual for me how the midterms are structured here, as we have no classes during our two week exam period. As well the exams are written in large rooms where we are each randomly assigned a desk to sit at, we must have a clear pencil case and if calculators are needed they are provided. It is all very serious and seemed almost as intense as final exams that I have had back in Canada. It was good in a was since we had the whole two weeks to focus on our 6 midterms exams, but the down side is it really made the time drag on, as it seems like I have been back here for months, but it really was only two weeks! The midterms themselves actually didn't seem too bad (but of course some seemed to go a bit better than other). Now I just can't wait until I get my marks back, which rumour has it will be with in a week or so.

As well this was probably the first time that I have ever written exams and not had to work during the exam period, so what I decided to try and do was grow a beard. The last time I shaved was on Saturday the 9th and then I didn’t shave again until Saturday the 23rd

Yeah so my conclusion is well after two weeks I definitely cannot grow a noticeable amount of facial hair (well except for a slight porn stash :P), but on the upside I found that it probably would have kept me a bit warmer (provided it had been cold here) and also I normally rub my cheeks and stroke my chin when thinking and studying, but now with the facial hair I found it helped me think. Well so now that exams are over again I’ll probably continue with my normal clean shaven self, but I’m still toying with the idea of trying again after my last day of lectures and when I come for the summer (about 6weeks).

After half of my mid term exams were done with I had a few days off before my next midterm, so I spent a few hours and did a little shopping. My mother had given me a few pounds for Christmas, so I had decided to purchase some socks and underwear… (very lame I know, but it was easier than doing laundry, and well I was getting tired of doing laundry every week, yes I probably could have brought more back from Canada but due to weight restrictions I choose a few boxes of KD over socks and underwear)...anyways so I went into town and went to a few stores. I was amazed to find such a huge selection of socks everywhere I went. See I’m use to men’s socks basically being black or white, and occasionally getting the odd grey or blue one but nothing like this! Here they have every colour imaginable, as well as socks with Simpson’s, family guy, soccer/football, beer, basically anything and everything! It of course ended up taking much longer than expected for my shopping trip, but ultimately I am so very excited about the socks that I ended up getting. I found these great Day of the Week socks with cool happy faces...you have no idea how excited I am about these and I started wearing them on Monday :D

It also happened that the day of our third midterm (out of six) one of my friends had a Birthday (nothing better than having to write an exam on your birthday :P), so after the exam a group of us took him out to a local restaurant; Pizza Express. It made for a nice afternoon to let us unwind and forget about our exams for a bit.

About a week later it was our last midterm exam which happened to fall on a Saturday morning, so a group of us decided to have a celebratory brunch. We ended up making some Aunt Jamima Pancakes (so real North American style pancakes), Maple syrup (from Canada) and some bacon.

We also had some toast with some Kraft Peanut butter and Marmite.

Marmite was really the only non Canadian thing we had, but we had to try it. Marmite is this greasy, browny black paste made from brewers yeast (and honestly it looks like something scrapped out of a sewer) that some British people enjoy on toast (and with several other foods as well). Of course it looked fairly gross, but of course I had to try it and well it definitely didn't taste like it looked. It was actually very strange because it tasted like I had just dumped a jar of salt on my toast, if I had gotten past the saltiness I don't think it would have been too bad, but salt on toast unfortunately I just couldn't do. But it was an experience and well now at least if someone asks if I would like some Marmite with my toast I can say "no, but could you please spread some on our walk to melt the ice".

You would then think that after the Marmite I would hold off on trying different food for a bit, and well I didn't (instead I just decided to stay away from the British food) since that very night a bunch of us went over to a new friends place for a sort of dinner party and we had Indian food. It was different food from the Indian food that I had already tried, and well unfortunately I can't remember the names of these dishes, but just that they were phenomenally good, since I was a bit concerned as I wasn't sure how spicy it would be. Fortunately he has gotten very good at making the food with very little spice over the years. On Sunday I had some more friends cook and this time we had a lupper (late lunch/early dinner) consisting of mainly Iranian dishes as well as a Greek pasta dish. It was a really interesting mix of food and it turned out that the Greek dish was kind of like Italian lasagne but with different noodles. It was all really good and even the leftovers the next few days were amazing.

On Saturday night after dinner I ended up calling it a night around midnight and ended up going back to my flat and watched a Toronto Rock lacrosse game. As many of you probably know I use to play lacrosse for several years, and so lately I have found myself enjoying going to the Toronto Rock games, and last year I managed to make it to four or five games last season. This year I had originally planned on doing the same, but well it's a bit too far for me to travel, so instead I find myself running home Saturday nights to watch the games online. Luckily for me the NLL (National Lacrosse League) shows all of the games on their website, so I have managed to see all three of the Toronto Rock's wins. After the first weekend I was procrastinating a bit and decided to make some predictions as to how the NLL season will end up, and I've decided to mention how I think the teams will end up being ranked and it'll be interesting to see how I did (if I was even remotely close). I think I’m somewhat confident of these top four teams, but as for the rest we'll just have to see

1. Washington Stealth
2. Toronto Rock
3. Orlando Titans
4. Calgary Roughnecks
5. Rochester Knighthawks
6. Colorado Mammoth
7. Buffalo Bandits
8. Boston Blazers
9. Minnesota Swarm
10. Edmonton Rush
11. Philadelphia Wings

Well now I think that brings us up to date again :-)

Jeff

*Word of the Week: "invigilate" turns out to be a fancy British word for "proctor". As well I'm not sure if it's because of the high international student population at this school, or the large number of masters and PhD students or if it is a UK thing but it seems like many people use the word "paper" and "exam" synonymously.