Tag Archive: Winter Break

  1. Countdown ’till hibernation mode

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    18 days, 1 hour, 42 minutes and 13 seconds. That’s how long it is until the Christmas break begins. I can’t wait. I know people say that all the time, but I literally cannot wait. I want to go home and think about something else than uni for just one minute.

    Forget everything I said in my previous post about making this year last forever: I am so tired I feel like I could’ve slept continuously through the whole of next week, scrap that, next month if it hadn’t been for the tiny insignificant detail that I’ve paid a small fortune to be here.

    If I’m not working on uni stuff, I’m talking about it (either through sympathetically calming someone down from a close-call breakdown or ranting to my flatmates) and if I’m not talking about it I’m definitely thinking about it. I keep a list of all the things I have to do, just to make sure my brain doesn’t burst from trying to remember everything that’s going on.

    A normal conversation between course mates nowadays usually goes something like this:

    “How are you?”
    “Eeeeeh,” (facial expression reflecting panic attacks hovering just beneath the surface) “I’m OK” (fake smile).
    “Mmmmm,” (knowing and conspiratory smile) “I know”.
    “It’s just so… so… arh, it’s so ­–“ (eyes looking off in the distance)
    “I know”.
    “I feel so…. so–“ (eyes go inward-looking)
    “Yup, I know.”
    And then we sit there in silence looking despaired.

    Projects and deadlines are piling up, and just when you think the workload can’t get any bigger, then it sure does. The light at the end of the tunnel is our 1.5 month long Christmas break. And that we have no exams. Which means we can enter hibernation mode as soon as the clock hits 5pm on December 12 (or 13 for some).  Only 17 days, 23 hours, 10 minutes and 4 seconds to go.

    Photo: http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i/keep-calm-and-make-it-to-winter-break-21.png

  2. The Pros and Cons of a Long Winter Break

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    I’m usually lucky to receive a week off during the holiday season. For the last few years, I’ve been working in places that required me on holidays and so I often had only one or two days off for “winter break.” Even when I was in University back in the States, I would get three weeks off maximum. So imagine my surprise when I get whole six weeks off here at City! And my finals aren’t until week five of those six weeks! Back home, you have finals at the end of term, which gives you barely any time to study, but all the information at least would be (hopefully) present since classes have just finished. Here, with all this time to study, I should have no excuse not to pass my exam with flying colors, right?

    A snow child gazes at the freezing fountain

    I’d rather take photos of Regent’s Park in the snow then study. I mean, who wouldn’t?

    Well I figured out the reason why they don’t do it this way back in the good ol’ USA. Simply put, I had no motivation to start studying. The exam wasn’t for five weeks! Plenty of time to go on vacation (Macedonia is cold this time of year!), hang out with friends, and generally not study.

    I had every intention of sitting down with my textbook. I managed to do so about once a day for two weeks leading up to the exam. But I found that even though time was running out, my motivation stayed lacking. Even up to the days right beforehand, I couldn’t bring myself to sit down and study. How did I do on my exam? Well, we’ll see.

    There are many things I love about the UK, and London in particular. My school is top-notch, my friends and classmates are awesome, and I’m enjoying my time here immensely. However, I would not have minded having my exam closer to the end of term, if just so I didn’t have the specter of Exam Guilt hovering over me for the last five weeks!

     

    At least none of my classes this term have exams. I think.