I just ended my special term last fri. The exam was still doable, though I realised I left out important points after I left the exam hall. I really hate writing exam essays. Often you have to address a big issue with such little time. I find it facile to try to tackle a problem of such enormity within the confines of an examination. Many times I had strong ideas, but realised I wouldn't have the time to built on them, so I had to settle for much simplistic ideas. Also, perhaps due to my poor working memory, I have problems holding my thoughts in mind and organising them.

I did quite badly for 2010/2011 2nd sem, though I did get A+ for my Socio-cognitive Perspectives of Emotions mod. Even before the release of the results, my lecturer told me that I did extremely well for his module. When I tried to inquire, he said he couldn't reveal more and that I would be very pleased with the outcome. Indeed, hehehe... I was also shocked to get a A for Language and Cognitive Processes. I expected at most a B. The mod was so opaque and abstruse. The lecture slides were badly structured and I could hardly follow. There was no textbook to guide the lost students. In its place, we had a thick coursepack of mostly unreadable journal articles. We also had a group project that was undoable. That was a project that made me feel utterly helpless. The title of the mod was misleading. I was expecting to learn about syntax, morphology, pragmatics, semantics etc. In the end it was just reading and spelling and dyslexia. The worst was that we had to include citations in the exam essays, e.g. (Jacquenot & Scott, 2003). This is ridiculous. The lecturer still said that even though our lecturers didn't mention, but secretly they hoped that we would all include citations in their essays. Yeah right.

I was disappointed with the result for English Phonetics and Phonology. I got a B+, but I was expecting nothing less than an A, to the point that I appealed for a review. But there was no re-marking of scripts and checking that the marks were added correctly. I received their reply not long after: "The Department of English Language and Literature has reviewed your EL3202 script(s) and confirms that the EL3202 grade given on your result slips stands." I thought I asked several intelligent questions during tutorials and lectures. But there were no participation points anyway.

I did badly for my psychology lab. I dropped my lab mod last sem due to the bunch of idiots. It was no better this sem. Still a bunch of idiots save for one, who was good at using SPSS. I had to think of ideas myself. I worked till 4am on some days searching for journal articles. The burden was on me to come up with everything. I really hated it. This sem there were 4 group projects. I did almost everything for 3. The 4th one was the Language project and we were all pretty helpless and there was a bastard who chose the easy task for himself.

This afternoon I ad lunch with my mum outside. As the coffee shops nearby are terrible, I brought my mum to a not so near one. After turning in to one road after another, we finally arrived. My mum exclaimed she had been there before, around 10 years ago, while she was jogging. She also claimed that there was a 三阳茶馆 nearby. But it was not to be found. There was only a 三坛水灵宫. Finally she went to ask the lady of a very old provision shop. She replied there indeed was a 三阳茶馆, but it closed down... 10 years ago.

P.S.: I'm proud to have attended 3 rallies in the midst of my exams. It was really an eye-opening experience. It would be another 5 years before the next rallies and hopefully I won't have any exams den.