School work

With my parents now safely back in Denmark, it is about time I started being a bit more serious about this blog. But for all the events that have happened in the last week of internet-blog silence, the recurring theme is school work.

Unlike my Danish education, which has a single, comprehensive final exam after 7-8 weeks of lectures in each course, my courses in Hong Kong take the whole semester. My courses are consequently less intense, with only 3 class-hours a week (compared to 6 hours + exercise classes in Denmark), so the amount of work roughly equals out. That is until we have midterms.

Semester-courses often have midterms, and I have them in three out of five courses, with the result counting some 25% of my total score. This is low enough so that a bad performance doesn't discourage you for the remaining half of the semester, but large enough to actually make an impact, although I must admit I struggle to find the motivation.

The most bizarre thing is that although everybody knows midterms are part of the courses, the administration insists on conducting them all the same week. Therefore I have 3 closed-book midterms in the space of 4 days, all covering everything which has so far been read. Not that this is inhuman, but considering the added pressure on the student, would it be impossible to make conduct them in the space of two weeks? Or even three? I guess not, and consequently I shall be spending most of my weekend at the library - perhaps blogging will be slightly affected again.